Way back in 2011, before I moved to Thailand, I bought a small Synology DS-211j NAS. The DS-211j came out in 2011, and it has room for two 3.5 inch hard drives. The ‘J’, I’m not sure of. Maybe ‘Junior’ since the J model is the least expensive, stripped down version. That said, it’s still a pretty nice little home NAS. One of the extras that comes with the NAS operating software is an application called Surveillance Station, that I’ve never really used.
Not all that long ago, as my home media collection has expanded, I bought a Synology DS-1517+. This one was made in 2017, and has five drive bays for 3.5 inch hard drives. There was also an eight bay unit but I thought that was a bit much. The new NAS keeps all my media files; copies of cellphone photos, a copy of my music collection, a copy of my book collection, storage for all the television series I’ve felt deserved saving to watch again, copies of movies I felt deserved saving to watch again.
Since I now have a spare NAS, and that unused Surveillance Station, along with a growing collection of Raspberry Pi computers, I’ve been playing around with tight budget security cameras. The standard application though only allows for attaching at most two cameras. Two camera slots are enough to learn about the cameras, and learn about the management application, but two cameras aren’t enough for a good coverage security system. Good thing all I’m really looking for is an opportunity to learn.