Recording & Storage

Footage that's still there when you need it

Storage is where security systems quietly fail: retention runs out at the worst moment, a disk dies, or a network outage silently blanks the evidence. Hanwha's recording architecture attacks each of those failure modes — here's how, in plain terms.

Automatic Recording Backup diagram: camera saves to SD card when the NVR is unreachable, then auto-transfers recordings when the network recovers

On this page:

Retention by importance RAID vs non-RAID Dual-stream recording Edge recording ARB auto-backup SolidEDGE SSD camera Bookmarks Search & playback

1. Give your most important cameras the most retention

Not every camera matters equally. The cash-office camera may need 90 days of history; the break-room camera might only need two weeks. Hanwha recorders let you allocate recording storage by channel importance — giving critical cameras a larger share of the disks so their recordings survive longer before being overwritten.

The same design spreads the recording load across multiple hard disks, which prevents disk bottlenecks, keeps write bandwidth healthy, and keeps the whole system smooth even at high channel counts.

Sizing this properly before purchase is exactly what the WAVE System Calculator & DesignPro are for.

NVR recording allocation by channel importance: critical cameras get more storage for longer retention, load spread across multiple disks

2. RAID vs non-RAID: what a dead disk costs you

Every hard disk eventually fails — the question is what happens to your recordings when it does.

  • Non-RAID: maximum capacity for the money — every terabyte you buy stores video. If a disk fails, you lose what was on it until it's replaced, and recordings written elsewhere continue.
  • RAID (5/6 on Hanwha's high-end NVRs): some capacity is spent on parity, so a failed disk doesn't interrupt recording — you swap the drive and the system rebuilds, without losing the footage window.

Practical guidance: non-RAID is fine for smaller budgets and lower-risk sites; RAID is the right call when uninterrupted evidence matters — multi-tenant properties, high-liability sites, and any compliance-driven deployment. High-end models like the 32-channel PRN-3200B4 support RAID 5 & 6 with up to 16 bays. See the NVR lineup.

Comparison of RAID storage with redundancy versus non-RAID maximum capacity on a network video recorder

3. Dual-stream recording

Every Hanwha camera produces two streams: a main stream (full quality — what gets recorded) and a sub stream (lightweight — what remote viewers watch). Recording the main stream while people view the sub stream keeps the network and recorder fast even with many simultaneous viewers, and it's how remote monitoring stays responsive on modest connections. In WAVE, this behavior is configurable per camera, and GPU decoding takes it further on workstations.

4. Edge recording: a backup recorder inside every camera

Nearly every Hanwha camera accepts a microSD card — many support dual slots up to 1 TB. The camera can keep recording to its own card in addition to the recorder: a private, local safety copy.

More importantly, edge storage enables failover recording: if the network or the recorder goes down, the camera keeps capturing locally instead of going blind. When the link comes back, the footage is there — and with ARB, it flows back to the recorder automatically.

Edge recording is standard practice on our mobile trailer deployments, where connectivity is cellular and never perfect.

Edge recording diagram: camera records to its SD card while streaming to the NVR, and keeps recording locally during network outages

5. ARB — Automatic Recording Backup

ARB (Automatic Recovery Backup) is the piece that turns edge storage from "nice" into "bulletproof":

  1. While the camera can't reach the recorder, it saves the video to its own SD card.
  2. The moment the network recovers, the camera automatically transfers the buffered recordings to the NVR.
  3. The recorder's timeline fills in the gap — your evidence window is complete, not patched.

No operator intervention, no manual SD pull-and-copy, no lost hours. Supported on Hanwha AI NVRs (for example the PRN-3200B4); we configure it on any deployment where the network isn't trusted.

ARB automatic recording backup: during a network outage the camera records to SD, then backfills the NVR automatically on recovery

6. SolidEDGE: the recorder that is a camera

SolidEDGE (PNV-A6081R-E, in 1 TB and 2 TB variants) is the first true SSD-based security camera: an AI vandal dome with a built-in solid state drive and Wisenet WAVE VMS pre-loaded — a complete, server-less VMS.

It records itself plus up to five additional cameras (six total, 32 Mbps aggregate), includes a WAVE Professional channel license, and is managed remotely through WAVE Sync — no on-site server, no NVR, no rack.

Perfect fit: small retail, branch offices, gates, and temporary sites that need real AI analytics and multi-camera recording without infrastructure. Security credentials included: TPM, FIPS 140-2 Level 2, secure boot, and firmware-forgery verification.

Hanwha SolidEDGE SSD-based AI camera with built-in storage and preloaded Wisenet WAVE VMS

7. Bookmarks: protecting the clips that matter

Recorders recycle old footage as disks fill — that's by design. But incidents and important events shouldn't vanish with them. Bookmarking a video protects it from being overwritten and deleted: flagged clips are kept out of the normal recycling path until you release them. Investigators, insurers, and HR teams all end up grateful for this one small habit. See also search & playback for finding the right moment fast.

Bookmarking important video clips in the recorder to protect them from automatic overwrite and deletion