DVR, NVR, Or Cloud —
What Actually Records?
Here's the part nobody tells you when you buy cameras: most of them remember nothing on their own. The recorder is what gives them a memory — and there are three very different ways to do it.
People buy security cameras assuming the footage is just... there. It usually isn't. A camera shows a live picture; storing that picture is a separate job, done by a separate thing. Get that wrong and you find out the hard way — the night something happens, there's nothing to play back.
There are three ways to give cameras a memory: a DVR, an NVR, or the cloud. Here's the honest difference, and which one is right for most people.
The Three Options
DVR vs NVR vs Cloud
- DVR — the old way. A digital video recorder records analog cameras over coax cable. It's the legacy technology: cheaper, lower resolution, and tied to older camera wiring. If you're building new, it's rarely the right call.
- NVR — the modern way. A network video recorder records IP cameras over a network cable, at far higher resolution, with smarter features. This is what current systems use, and what we install.
- Cloud — the subscription way. No box at all — footage uploads to a provider's server, and you pay every month to keep it. Convenient, but you're renting access to your own recordings, forever.
For most homes and businesses the honest answer is an NVR: modern resolution, no monthly fee, and the footage lives in your building on a drive you own. We get into the cloud-vs-local tradeoff more in our subscription guide.
The Recorder We Install
The Ajax NVR — Your Drive, Your Building
The Ajax NVR HAC records 8 or 16 IP cameras to a single drive in your building — $559 for the 8-channel, $879 for the 16-channel. Plug a monitor into the HDMI port and a mouse into the USB, and the whole video-management system runs on the box itself: a local security station with no computer and no internet needed after setup. No subscription, ever — the footage is yours.
It also does something clever: when an Ajax detector trips, the matching camera feed is highlighted automatically, so "what just happened?" takes seconds instead of scrubbing hours of video. Exported clips carry a digital signature too, so they hold up as evidence. And it's NDAA-compliant, which matters if you're speccing for a public agency.
Read This First
Two Honest Things Before You Buy
We'd rather tell you now than after the invoice:
- It doesn't include a drive. One SATA bay, up to 16TB, sold separately — and use a surveillance-rated drive (WD Purple, Seagate SkyHawk), not a desktop drive that quits the week you need it.
- It doesn't power your cameras. An NVR is a recorder, not a PoE switch. Your cameras get power from a separate PoE switch — budget for it now, not at install.
- Recording and displaying are different limits. It records all 8 or 16 channels at up to 8MP, but showing them live at 4K all at once is a smaller number — one 4K feed, or more at lower resolution. That's normal for how these work (sub-streams drive the video wall, full-res on the camera that matters), but if you pictured eight 4K tiles at once, that's the honest ceiling.
Sizing this right is a design question — and we do it free. It's a lot cheaper to ask than to buy the wrong channel count.
Keep Reading
Related Guides
- How many cameras you need — before you size a recorder, size the coverage
- Bullet vs turret vs dome — which camera type feeds the recorder
- PoE vs Wi-Fi cameras — how the cameras connect and get power
Not Sure What Recorder
You Actually Need?
Tell us how many cameras, what resolution, and how many days of footage you want to keep, and we'll size the NVR, the drive, and the switch — free. Getting it wrong is expensive; asking isn't.