How can I remotely back up my CCTV footage?

[the1lemming]

Hello

I have a small home network consisting of a router, a few computers attached to it both wired and wireless and a small NAS device where I back up all my data.

One computer is a dedicated to the task of recording the comings and goings outside my front door and it does nothing else. The computer has a single, waterproof external analogue video, CCTV camera connected to the computer via a USB which converts video signals to digital for storage on a hard drive. The computer itself DOES NOT have a keyboard, mouse or monitor attached to it. I connect and control the computer with remote viewing software on another computer which is on my internal network at home. I use Team Viewer to control the dedicated DVR computer.

My problem is, if my property was broken into there would be nothing to stop the thief from stealing the computer which has just recorded evidence of them entering my home.

What can I do or should do so that any potential evidence is backed up somewhere else in the event that my dedicated DVR computer is stolen?

Cheers

[Semper Vaporo]

There are two ways that I can think of:

One is to hide the "real" computer in a place that won't be found. Might even put a dummy PC out where it can be "stolen" easily and the thief would think they are safe by stealing it, but the real one is hidden in the basement ceiling or something. Might want to feed the display video out from the "real" computer through the dummy PC so that when they pull to plugs out, the monitor would show the disconnection happening (might be suspicious for the monitor to continue displaying an image when they rip the computer off the shelf!).

The other is to use the feature of the program that will FTP of the Motion Detected files to some place on the internet, or the feature to e-mail snapshots of the event to an off-site e-mail account. These do require the PC to be on the internet all the time, but that is probably standard for most systems.

[ryan]

In addition to using ftp, a simple old fashioned solution would be to store the video on an external usb hard drive and physically secure that hard drive to something (locked in a drawer, bolted to something, etc..). Many thefts are grab and go, but even lingering thieves would be unlikely to exert excess time and energy for a relatively worthless external hard drive.