Local Storage (HDDs) for DW Spectrum® IPVMS Overview
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Affected Roles: Administrator, Owner
Related Digital Watchdog VMS Apps: DW Spectrum® IPVMS
Complexity: Medium
Last Edit: March 15, 2022
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Local Storage Management
DW Spectrum IPVMS offers a simple way to manage the internal storage of a system. Each DW Spectrum Server can use unlimited local and network storage (local storage options permitting) where if more storage is added to the local machine, the DW Spectrum Server program will automatically balance space consumption across the storage drives. The intensity of how much storage space is used varies depending to the availability of storage and the Reserved Space that is set for the media server.
This article will outline enabling local storage settings and configuring video archive data storage for the DW Spectrum IPVMS platform.
**NOTE: The use of external hard drives are not supported by DW Spectrum IPVMS. If an external storage device is needed, the DW Blackjack NAS is recommended for integration with your DW Spectrum system.
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Configuring Local HDD Storage
To configure the local hard drives for DW Spectrum Server’s Storage Locations:
- In the DW Spectrum Client, right-click on the relevant server in the Resource Panel and select “Server Settings”.
- The Server Settings window will display.
Click on the “Storage Management” tab to view the Storage Location settings of the selected server.
Make sure that the desired storage locations are enabled (green) to allow the server to utilize the local drives for media storage.
**NOTE: The Local Disk (C:) drive will automatically be Reserved and cannot be selected as a storage location. This is to ensure that the local computer’s system and the DW Media storage are kept separated.
- If there are multiple Storage Locations set for the server, you have the option to change the “Reserved” setting from “Main” to “Backup”. This will allow DW Spectrum to use the Backup servers as redundant storage for the video archives where they will still be available at the server itself should the server be taken offline (loses network connection).
For more information, check out Configuring Backup and Redundant Storage.
How DW Spectrum® IPVMS Reserves Space (default)
DW Spectrum IPVMS will automatically reserve space on every internal storage drive that has been enabled/assigned for DW Spectrum, according to the following basic rules:
System Drive (e.g. Local Disk C:)
The Local Disk (C:) drive partition contains the computer’s operating system (e.g. Windows or Ubuntu) and other operational program files. Because of this, DW Spectrum will consider it to be a “disabled” drive and will avoid using this drive for regular archive storage whenever possible.
- If there is only one storage disk installed within the computer and only one partition (Local Disk C: only), the system will be forced to use that lone drive. Additionally, if the drive has at least 10x less overall storage capacity than any other drives installed in the computer (the system will assume that the smaller drive is the OS storage).
Local Hard Drives (e.g. Local Disk D:)
Any additional internal storage drives, other than the system drive (Local Disk C:), is able to be used to host a DW Media folder for archiving video.
- The reserved space that is automatically created when designating a drive for DW Spectrum archive storage will not exceed more than 10% of any individual drive’s overall storage capacity.
- For instructions on how change the Reserved Space settings for DW Spectrum, check out Adjusting Reserved Disk Space.
NAS (network access storage) Devices
DW Spectrum will treat each individual NAS unit as a single, large hard drive where a DW Spectrum Server will send video recordings to the NAS to be archived over a network connection (LAN, WAN).
- The reserved space for NAS will be between 50~100 GB and will not exceed more than 10% of the overall NAS capacity
- For instructions for adding a NAS drive to a DW Spectrum Server, check out Expand Storage with NAS Devices (SAMBA Method)
**NOTE: Other than NAS, DW Spectrum does not support external storage devices (external HDD, USB drive, etc.) and will be unlikely to detect such connections.
