Selfhosted camera system / photo storage? en (kbin.social)

Apologies if I'm off base here, but I have two issues I'm trying to solve and unsure where I should start - whether these are two separate issues to solve or if I should get something that can do both.

Needs:

  1. backup and safely store photos and videos from Android phones (in a raid array so it's redundant storage).
  2. monitor a set of 2 exterior cameras and a) throw a notification onto a phone when there's movement b) without giving footage or thumbnails to an external server.

About me:
I'm tech literate enough to Google things and copy/paste or troubleshoot based on what worked for others, but I'd like to avoid having to learn to code or run command lines. I have young kids and don't really want to have to spend a whole lot of time on this to get it to work or walk my spouse through how to use it.

Options considered:
1a) a Synology product seems like the lowest barrier to entry, but the risk seems to be less ability to fix and potentially more risk of unrecoverable data (GN did videos about this). 1b) multiple hard drives on a PC - works but would suck if my PC fries. 1c) multiple external drives - seems wonky and easier for something to fail. 1d) all of the above and hope it somehow works.
2a) Eufy looked like a good option (local storage and push notifications), until the recent scandal. I am not interested in having pics of little girls on a server somewhere, even if it is only outside pictures. 2b) a wired camera connection - however I'm not going to know if anyone is doing something sketchy unless I know to review the footage. 2c) Synology has an option - however there are the issues mentioned above and I'd also need to drop $400 for the cameras, $200 for the station, and a couple hundred for the drives. 2d) make my own mini comp - however more likely for wonky stuff and higher power draw over the long term.

Any suggestions on where to go from here?

/kbin logotype
JonEFive,

I've been using a Synology NAS for years. I use file and photo sync and it works pretty well. I just set up Surveillance Station (their security camera recording software) and connected an inexpensive camera to it. It works really well although it took me a while to figure everything out.

If you're concerned about data loss, you can set up a backup to Amazon S3 or another backup/storage service or you can put a Synology NAS somewhere else and have it back up to that. You could also have it sync with a service like One Drive.

I like to tinker so I've set up a couple other things on it including a Plex server, pi hole, and a VPN Server. It's a pretty versatile device.

Kal,

Synology in an offsite location because it just works, and I have no complaint about their mobile app. At home I’m running proxmox with truenas and raided drives. A nightly script will copy all new files from synology to a truenas share.

franglais,

Sounds similar to my needs. My solution was a self hosted instance of own cloud on a raspberry pi 4 (nextcloud was good but too too many bells and whistles, and was unstable on my system). The owncloud android app automatically transfers my photos and videos, which are then automatically downloaded to my main PC. Important: This is not a backup solution, if I delete a photo from one instance, it will be be deleted on all instances. This system had physical redundancy, as all photos are on at least 2 separate devices at a time.

Hello_there,

What was the rationale behind basically using a pi to just forward the files to your main PC? Wouldn't it be more efficient to just do everything on the main PC - using task scheduler or something?
I'm also concerned about putting all eggs in one basket. Ive experienced a shutdown ruining the formatting on a drive and losing everything on it. That, and the possibility of theft (PC is more attractive than a little hard drive) or water spilling on the comp and frying something, is what's preventing me from the simple option of just putting everything on the PC.

franglais,

You need to investigate owncloud, it is a self hosted cloud drive, think Dropbox, the pi is the machine in my house which is already internet facing, and has a wordpress blog running, with a domain name attached, so it made sense to use that. The owncloud android app sends all my photos and videos to the pi, and then when I am at my pc, the owncloud windows app pulls the files from the pi,so all files are synced. Once set up correctly, all of this happens without any manual intervention, and files are stored in 3 physical discs, my phone, my pi ext hard drive,and my PC. I also have an off site backup on oracle S3 Archive.

Hello_there,

Thanks for the explainer!

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