Which Video Archive Retention to Choose: 7, 14, 30 or 90 Days

Archive retention is the main parameter that determines both the cost of cloud video surveillance and whether you’ll find the recording when you need it. There’s no universal answer, but there is a simple rule.

The rule: retention = the time it takes for a problem to surface

Recordings aren’t needed “just in case” — they’re needed for specific events: a dispute with a customer, a shortage, a damage claim, an inspection. Every event has a typical delay between when it happened and when you learned about it. Your archive retention should cover that delay with a margin.

• A dispute at the checkout — you learn right away or on the day of the return: 14–30 days.
• A claim about a scratched car — usually within a week: 14 days.
• A shortage found during a stock audit — audits happen monthly, so the event could be 30+ days old: 60–90 days.
• A supplier’s delivery claim — may arrive a month or two later: 90 days.
• Reviewing an incident involving a child at a kindergarten — parents come forward within a few days: 30 days with a margin.
• Requests from inspectors or the police — rare, but for older periods: 90–180 days for key cameras.

How retention affects the price

The cost of a cloud archive is storage volume multiplied by the price per gigabyte. Volume grows linearly with the number of days: 30 days cost twice as much as 14, and 90 cost three times as much as 30. But the price per gigabyte is lower for longer retention: in MCVMS it’s 10 UZS per GB per day for 7–30 days, 8 for 60, 7 for 90–100, 6 for 180, and 5 for 365.

In practice, for one Full HD camera recording during business hours (≈10 GB per day):

• 14 days — about 44 000 UZS per month;
• 30 days — about 95 000;
• 90 days — about 200 000;
• 365 days — about 570 000.

So going from 14 to 30 days doubles the price, and from 30 to 90 doubles it again. That’s why it’s important not to apply a single retention period “to everything.”

Different cameras, different retention

In a cloud service, retention is set separately for each camera — and you should take advantage of that. A typical setup for a store:

• checkout — 60–90 days, continuous during business hours;
• sales floor — 30 days, during business hours;
• stockroom — 30–60 days, motion-triggered;
• entrance and street — 14 days, motion-triggered.

This way 80% of the volume goes to cameras where the archive really matters, and secondary ones don’t inflate the bill. By the same logic, in a warehouse the loading dock is kept for 90 days and the aisles for 14; in an office, the entrance and server room for 30–90, corridors for 14.

What else reduces volume besides retention

• Scheduled recording — business hours only: minus 50% for a store, office or café.
• Motion-triggered recording — for a warehouse at night, an entrance, a parking lot: minus 60–70%.
• A sensible bitrate — 2 Mbps for Full HD instead of the default 4: minus 50% with no noticeable loss of quality.
• H.265 instead of H.264 — minus 30–50% at the same quality.

Where to start

Take 30 days for key cameras and 14 for the rest, and enable scheduled or motion-triggered recording where it makes sense. After a month, check the actual volume and bill in the client panel — and adjust: a cloud archive can be changed on any day, with no disk or hardware replacement.

You can estimate your setup in the MCVMS calculator: number of cameras, quality, recording mode and retention — and you immediately see the monthly total.