Start with the purpose and retention
Decide how long footage is genuinely needed before selecting storage. There is no universal requirement to keep every recording for 30 days. Your purpose and data protection responsibilities should guide the period.
The main variables
Camera count, actual bitrate, frame rate, compression and continuous or event-based recording affect storage use. Busy scenes and night noise can change the bitrate depending on the configuration.
An illustrative calculation
Four cameras recording continuously at a fixed 4 megabits per second each generate approximately 173 GB per day in decimal units: 4 × 4 × 86,400 ÷ 8 ÷ 1,000. That is roughly 2.42 TB over 14 days, before overheads or spare capacity. This is an illustration, not a storage specification.
Confirm the available history
Check how much usable space the recorder actually provides and verify retention after the system has recorded for long enough. A storage health check and a playback test are part of looking after the system.
Make it specific to your property
Check storage and playback with Borders CCTV. We serve towns and rural properties across the Scottish Borders. A conversation about your site is the next step towards a useful specification.
Further reading
Official and manufacturer sources checked 3 October 2026. This is general information, not advice on a particular legal case or property.