ADENAcademy · Basics · Lesson 5 of 10

Storing and backing up recorded videos with AREC

In this lesson, we focus on the “Storage” and “Upload” pages of AREC Media Stations’ “Administrator” web interface and go through a few different ways of backing up media content with AREC.

Storage and backup settings for AREC Media Stations

Please be aware that this is one of the longer lessons and will require a bit more time than usual.

On AREC Media Stations, “Storage” defines where your videos are saved first, whereas “Upload” defines where the station will move these videos afterwards.

Configuring storage

All information about the station’s storage and related options can be found on the “Storage” page of the Media Station. All AREC Media Stations feature internal storage (except LS-US2), can use network-attached storage (NAS), and can use external drives connected via USB. The latest models (LS-210, LS-310, LS-410) all have a 2TB drive, but storage capacity on other models varies.

Currently selected storage is displayed under the "Storage" drop-down menu at the top of the page, where it can be changed to another storage device (after it is formatted by the Media Station) or a mounted NAS. Internal storage on all AREC Media Stations that have it is selected by default and formatted to the station's file system.

The file system that a Media Station uses and formats the drive to depends on the model. TI-series models (e.g. LS-110, LS-2, KL-3T) use ext4 file system. The latest AREC Media Stations (e.g. LS-210, LS-310, LS-410) can use both exFAT and ext4 file systems, and when formatting drives, the latest models apply exFAT file system. Both TI-series and the latest AREC Media Stations create system files on drives after they are formatted. Only drives that have AREC system files can be used by them as primary storage.

The most important practical difference between exFAT and ext4 is that exFAT is natively supported by all modern operating systems, including Windows and macOS, whereas ext4 is a file system used primarily by Linux operating systems. This difference means that a storage device that was formatted by one of the latest AREC Media Stations can be used interchangeably with a Windows/MAC computer and that same Media Station. However, this is not possible with a Windows/MAC computer and a TI-series model. If you need to use a drive interchangeably between a computer and a TI-series model, you will either need a Linux computer or software that can read ext4-formatted drives. If neither is available, you can still access and transfer files in many other ways, such as through the Video Manager web page or the GUI.

Formatting drives

NAS in the list of drives

If you are using one of the latest Media Station models and you would like to format a USB drive, simply connect it to any of the USB ports of your station. If you are using a TI-series model, connect it specifically to the back USB port.

After a drive is connected, it will be displayed in the list under “Disk information”. If the drive is incompatible (due to a file system or corruption), it will be highlighted with a reddish line.

Format the drive by pressing the “Format” button. Keep in mind that formatting the drive will erase all its contents, so make sure to transfer any important information from it before you do that. After that, the drive will become selectable in the “Storage” drop-down menu at the top of the page.

On the latest Media Stations (LS-210, LS-310, LS-410), primary storage drives can be connected to the front USB port.

On the previous Media Station models (e.g., LS-200, LS-860), primary storage drives can only be connected to the back USB ports of the stations.

Using NAS as primary storage

Media Stations also support using NAS as primary storage via NFS and CIFS protocols. To set up a NAS, click on the toggle button below "Mount" under "NAS settings" or on the arrow to the right of "NAS settings" to see a list of configuration options. Start by selecting the protocol that you intend to use and fill out the necessary fields. Precisely which fields need to be filled out and how, and whether any other settings need to be changed depends on the protocol you use and the NAS brand/model. For example, to use Synology NAS via NFS, you need to:

Enable NFS in your NAS. This is done in the Synology web interface. You need to log in as the administrator, then open "Control Panel" → “File Services” → “NFS” → tick the box next to “Enable NFS Service”
Create a folder in the “Shared Folder”. For this example, let’s call it TestNAS
Select this new folder and click “Edit”
Go to “NFS Permissions” and click “Create” to create a new rule. In this rule:
- Hostname or IP: put the asterisk sign (*) to let all devices store files on this folder or type in the IP address of a particular Media Station to let only that Media Station do so.
- Privilege: select “Read/Write”
- Squash: select “No mapping”
- Security: select “sys”
- Make sure the box “Enable asynchronous” is ticked. Leave other boxes empty.
Press “Save”. These are all the settings you need to do on your NAS; you can now configure the station. Go to the “Administrator” → "Storage" page of the station.
Under "NAS settings", ensure that "Mount" is set to "ON" and fill out the fields as follows:
- Address: IP address of the NAS.
- Port: leave empty.
- Folder: enter the name of the folder where you want to store the files as your NAS presents it in the “NFS Permissions” (described in 3.). In our example, we enter “volume1/TestNAS” without quotation marks.
- Username and password: leave blank.
- Options: enter “nolock” without quotation marks.
Press “Apply”. You should see an “Applied successfully” message appear. Then click “Connection test” to check the connection. If you encounter a “Service restart failed” message or another error, please double-check that you have performed all of the steps above and that all the information has been entered correctly. If you are still having difficulty with the setup, please contact us at www.a-dena.com for assistance.

Example of a proper NAS NFS setup

CIFS setup is different. Using Synology to provide an example, here are the steps:

Enable SMB in your NAS. This is done in the Synology web interface. You need to log in as the administrator, then open "Control Panel" → “File Services” → “SMB” → tick the box next to “Enable SMB Service”, then on that page click “Advanced Settings” and select “SMB3” in the “Minimum SMB protocol” if you are using one of the latest Media Stations or “SMB1” if you are using a TI-series model.
CIFS requires user accounts to be used, thus either create a new account or give permissions to an existing account to “Read/Write” in the folder where you want to save videos (if you haven’t created a folder yet, do so beforehand) and permissions to use “SMB” and “File Station”. Please note that this username must not have spaces.
On the Media Station, choose “CIFS”, then fill out the lines as follows:
- Address: IP address of your NAS.
- Port: leave empty.
- Folder: enter the name of the folder you wish to use. Continuing our example, we put “TestNAS” without quotation marks.
- Domain name: leave empty.
- Username and Password: enter the username and password of the account which you gave permissions to in point 2.
- Options: enter “nobrl,vers=3.0” without quotation marks if you are using one of the latest stations or "nobrl,vers=2.0" if you would like to use SMB2. If you are using a TI-series model, enter "nobrl,vers=1.0" instead.
Press “Apply”. You should see an “Applied successfully” message appear. Then click “Connection test” to check the connection. If you encounter a “Service restart failed” message or another error, please double-check that you have performed all of the steps above and that all the information has been entered correctly. If you are still having difficulty with the setup, please contact us at www.a-dena.com for assistance.

After you successfully apply NAS settings, don’t forget to select it as your storage under the “Storage” drop-down menu at the top of the page. Also, please note that using NAS for storage is only recommended for strong and stable network connections.

Example of a proper NAS CIFS setup

Configuring backup

As physical storage is limited and recordings can take a lot of space, for most use cases “Storage” may not be sufficient for long-term archiving of videos. For these scenarios, AREC Media Stations are able to manually and automatically back up recorded videos to cloud servers, integrated VCMS platforms, FTP/SFTP servers, and USB drives. Most backup-related settings are found on the “Upload” page of a Media Station.

Auto upload settings

At the top of the page are controls for auto upload. Start by selecting when the Media Station should auto upload:

OFF: the Media Station will not upload videos automatically.
After recording is completed: the Media Station will upload the recorded video automatically as soon as the recording is finished.
Daily scheduled: the Media Station will upload all videos recorded during the day. You need to define when the Media Station can start uploading and when it should stop. In this mode, the station will allocate more resources to the uploading task and execute it much faster. However, it will not be able to perform its normal tasks until the uploading task is finished. It is recommended to set this time period for when nobody will need the Media Station and at least 30 minutes before the next recording event.

Next, choose if you want the original video files to be automatically deleted after they finish uploading. This will help manage the Media Station’s storage space.

Lastly, you can choose which files to upload. Three options are available to you:

All recorded files: when this is selected, the station will upload the mixed video, original source videos, as well as metadata, snapshots, and other information about the video.
Mixed video: when this is selected, only the mixed video and its metadata will be uploaded.
Original source: when this is selected, only the original sources (channels) and their metadata will be uploaded.

Setting up auto upload server

Next, configure the upload destination. Start by choosing the type/protocol of the server you require. All latest AREC Media Stations support FTP, SFTP, integrated VCMS platforms (Kaltura, Opencast, Panopto), and Google Drive. For example, for FTP you need to fill out the following:

URL: the server’s address, e.g. 192.168.0.101
Port: port for FTP uploading to the given URL, e.g. 21 (default FTP port)
Folder: where you want to upload the recordings to, e.g. Videos
Authentication: whether you want to upload with a profile (Normal) or anonymously. If you selected “Normal”, then you will also need to enter the username and password for the server.

Press “Connection Test” on the right to make sure that the Media Station is able to upload files. If the connection is successful, you can leave this page.

If you encounter errors, then:

Double-check that the port number is correct
That the username and password are entered correctly and have permission to upload.
That the folder is not restricted.
That the server is working

Note that on AREC stations, spaces in the "Username" field are replaced with "+" symbols, which may cause some servers to refuse connection. To avoid this, we recommend creating a username without spaces for the Media Station.

Also, some servers may block connection after several failed attempts. If all the details are correct and the connection still fails, try to change the IP address of the Media Station.

If after checking all of the above you are still encountering issues, please contact us at www.a-dena.com for support. Similarly, if you are not sure what information to enter in the fields, contact us, and we will be happy to help you.

Uploading to Google Drive

To configure Google Drive upload, do the following:

Select it in the list of modes, then click “Get device code”.
A device code will be displayed and a “Sign in” button will appear below.
Click “Sign in” and a new browser page will open. Enter the code that you see on the station in the empty field on this new page and click "Continue".
Afterwards, select or log in a Google Account.
Give access to the AREC Upload Service when prompted.
After you see a “Success! Device connected” message on Google, return to the “Upload” page of your station and click the “Apply” button below.

Click “Connection test” to check the connection. If the connection is successful, you can start using the upload service.

If you would like to store videos in a particular folder, write its name in the “Folder” field. Keep in mind that Media Stations cannot upload deeper than 1 folder in Google Drive due to authentication limits. For example, this means you can create a folder “Videos” and the station will be able to upload there, but it won’t be able to upload to another folder inside “Videos”. If you leave the “Folder” field empty, the station will create new folders for every new video and name them using metadata, time and date information.

Note that existing folders cannot be used. After a folder name is specified in the "Folder" field, the Media Station will create a new folder with that name.

Uploading to USB

Uploading to USB on the latest Media Stations

Uploading to USB on previous Media Stations

Lastly, AREC Media Stations can automatically upload videos to connected USB drives. For this, the USB drive must be connected to the station before a recording is started and use a supported file system.

On the latest Media Station models (e.g. LS-210, LS-310, LS-410), this includes FAT32, NTFS, ext3, ext4, and exFAT. On these models, videos can be copied to USB after recording (Copy to USB) or recorded directly on USB, bypassing primary storage (Record to USB). To use the copy feature on LS-210, LS-310, or LS-410, first, enable it in the “Administrator” → "Video" → “Recording” page, then connect a USB drive to the front USB port of the Media Station that is just below the “Overlay” button, and start recording.

For TI-series models, the copy to USB mode is called “Front USB Storage”. Enable the mode and connect a USB drive with a FAT32 or NTFS file system to a front USB port of the station.

You will see a front USB indicator in the Online Director and a notification pop-up in the mixed video output indicating that a drive was connected (provided that notifications are enabled on the "Administrator" → "Media I/O" → "Display" page). After the recording is complete, wait until the station finishes copying files. You can see when the station finishes by checking the Online Director page (the pause button turns grey and the station can record again) or the GUI video output (a notification will appear). Alternatively, if your USB drive has an activity indicator LED, it should stop flashing after the transfer is complete. In addition, on the TI-series models, you can look at the recording button LED on the station’s front panel. It will keep flashing as long as the video is transferring.

You can also upload videos to USB drives manually by using the RS-232 / TCP command 2.3.10.3 “Set Backup to USB” or the GUI. This is covered in detail in Basics Lesson 10 “Exporting videos”.

That concludes the lesson. You can now test your knowledge and understanding by answering the questions on the lesson's form and watching the linked videos before moving on to the next lesson.

After you submit your answers on the form, make sure to click "View Scores" to see whether you answered correctly. You will also receive an email at the address you used when starting this lesson, containing your answers and a "View Scores" link.