Retention is a storage-and-liability decision. Here is how to size a recorder for the window you actually need.
Thirty days is the working minimum
Most incidents surface within a couple of weeks — a slip-and-fall claim, a chargeback dispute, an employee complaint. Thirty days covers the common cases with margin.
When to go to sixty or ninety
Cannabis, firearms, pharmacy, licensed beverage and some municipal contracts carry explicit retention rules. Insurance policies sometimes do too. Check the requirement before sizing the recorder, not after.
How storage is actually calculated
Resolution, frame rate, compression and scene activity all drive bitrate. Smart codecs cut storage dramatically on static scenes and barely at all on a busy parking lot. We size from measured bitrate per camera, then add headroom and RAID where losing footage is not an option.
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