Security camera SD card vs cloud: what if the camera is stolen?

An SD card stores footage inside the camera, with no monthly fee, and a 64GB card holds around six months of motion recordings on average. The catch is that if someone takes or smashes the camera, the card usually goes with it. Cloud storage sends a copy of each clip off-site after it's recorded, so anything already uploaded survives, and that's the main reason to pay for it.

SD card vs cloud at a glance

What happens to your footage if the camera is stolen

With an SD card, every recording lives on a small card inside the camera. When you scroll back through footage in the app, your phone is pulling it from that card over the internet. Once the camera is gone or offline, there's nothing left to play back.

Some Reolink devices now offer file encryption. Reolink says that when it's switched on, anyone who removes the SD card or hard drive and tries to play the recordings on a computer needs a decryption password, and the files stay encrypted even after a factory reset. Support depends on the model, hardware version and firmware, and is currently limited to the Home Hub series, some NVRs and selected cameras. Look for a Video File Encryption option in the device settings. Encryption protects your privacy. It doesn't get the footage back to you.

A smashed camera is less clear-cut. Sometimes the housing cracks and you can pull the card out and read it. Sometimes the card is damaged or the whole unit is gone. Don't build your plan around getting lucky.

With an off-site copy, each clip is uploaded after it's recorded. So the clips of someone walking up the path, looking around and reaching for the camera are usually stored somewhere else by the time they touch it. Those approach clips are often the most useful part of the story. The clip that's still recording when the camera is ripped down may not make it.

Where a Reolink Home Hub fits

A Home Hub is a middle option. It stores recordings from your cameras on a box inside the house. Reolink's set-up advice is to install the cameras outdoors and keep the Home Hub Mini indoors, connected to your router by Ethernet cable. A thief who grabs an outdoor camera doesn't get the hub.

It's still on your property, though. A burglar who gets inside could take it, and a fire would destroy it. Reolink's comparison table also says the Home Hub and Home Hub Pro work with Reolink Wi-Fi and PoE cameras, but not 4G cameras.

How much an SD card really holds

We measured 333 motion recordings from three Reolink cameras. The average clip was about 2 MB, 90% were under 3.4 MB, and the largest was 7.3 MB. The cameras triggered between 34 and 135 times a day, far more than the 10 to 15 times a day most people guess.

On those numbers, a 64GB card holds roughly six months of motion recording on average. That's an average, not a promise: it depends on how often your camera is triggered. A camera facing a busy street or a swaying tree fills the card much faster. When the card is full, the camera records over the oldest footage first. The full breakdown is in how much footage a 64GB SD card holds.

The worst case we've measured was a cobweb in front of one camera. It triggered almost non-stop: over 9,000 recordings and nearly 1 TB in a few days. On a card alone, something like that would overwrite weeks of real footage in days. If your card seems to fill up fast, start with fixing false alerts from spiders and trees.

A cloud plan works differently. You get a fixed window of 90 or 180 days, whatever the card is doing.

How much upload data a cloud copy uses

Using our averages, 34 to 135 clips a day at around 2 MB each works out to roughly 70 to 270 MB a day per camera. That's a small load for a typical home NBN connection. On a 4G camera running on a SIM with a data cap, it matters more.

Cut the false triggers before you turn on uploads. When we switched one busy business driveway camera to person-only detection with a detection zone, its recordings dropped by about 97%, from about 1,300 a day to under 40.

Sharing footage with police or your insurer

With an SD card, you open the app, find the clip, download it to your phone and send it on. That works fine, as long as the camera is still on the wall and online.

With an off-site copy, you can get to recordings from any browser. That helps if you're interstate when something happens, or if the camera is the thing that was stolen. WireFree Cloud also lets you invite another person, such as a partner, housemate or business co-owner, with their own access, so they can download a clip without needing your phone.

Timing matters too. Insurance claims and police matters can drag on for months, long after a busy camera's SD card has looped over the night in question. In WireFree Cloud you can mark a recording to keep, and it's held for up to 12 months.

Whichever way you store footage, send the original clip as recorded rather than a trimmed or screen-recorded version. Our guide on giving CCTV footage to NSW Police or your insurer covers the steps.

When an SD card on its own is enough

Plenty of people don't need a cloud plan. A card alone is usually enough if most of these apply:

• The camera is hard to reach. It's mounted high on a double-storey wall or under second-floor eaves, where nobody can grab it without a ladder.
• It's an indoor camera. Think a hallway, or a living room camera watching the dog.
• It covers low-risk areas. A backyard, side passage or pool area, where you mainly want to see what the possum did.
• You save clips promptly. If you check alerts and download anything important to your phone the same day, that download is your off-site copy.
• You'd rather not pay a monthly fee. That's a fair choice if the camera isn't easy to steal.

An off-site copy is worth it when:

• The camera is within reach. Single-storey fronts, terrace porches, rear-lane garages and carports are common in the Inner West and Eastern Suburbs, and many put the camera within arm's reach of the footpath.
• It watches a shop or business entry. That matters most after hours, when nobody is around to notice the camera's gone. See cameras for small businesses.
• You travel a lot, or other people need to see the footage too.
• The camera is on a site nobody visits for days, such as a 4G camera at a holiday house or storage shed.

What an off-site copy costs

WireFree Cloud keeps a copy of recordings from Reolink cameras, stored in Sydney. Each recording is uploaded over an encrypted (FTPS) connection.

Keep the SD card in the camera as the first copy. The cloud is the second copy, the one that survives if the camera doesn't. When we supply the Reolink cameras, WireFree Security fits a 64GB card and includes six months of WireFree Cloud, with no card details needed during the free period.

Not every Reolink camera can upload by itself. Reolink's list of which cameras support FTP uploading covers PoE cameras, most plug-in Wi-Fi models and a set of battery and 4G models, some only in specific hardware versions. Reolink says cameras not on that list can't upload on their own but can when connected to a Reolink NVR or Home Hub. Other brands such as Eufy, Arlo and Ring run their own cloud subscriptions, so check the maker's Australian site for current plans.

The short answer

Use the SD card in every camera and treat it as free storage. Then decide whether each camera needs a second copy somewhere else, based on one question: could someone reach it and take it?

If a camera is high, indoors or watching the backyard, and you save the important clips, a card is enough. If it's at arm's height on a street front or guarding a business, an off-site copy is the cheap insurance that means the footage of the theft still exists after the camera doesn't.