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Synology Surveillance Station Basics

· synology, surveillance, camera

I bought a cheap standalone NVR once and hated its interface, so I moved my cameras to Surveillance Station on the NAS. It records IP cameras to your volume, gives live view and playback in a browser or the DS cam app, and handles motion detection, retention and alerts. For a home or small office with two to four cameras it's a solid alternative, and the recordings sit on storage you already back up.

This is the path from zero to a camera recording on motion, on DSM 6.2 with Surveillance Station 8.2. You need the package installed (it creates the surveillance shared folder) and an IP camera with a fixed address and ONVIF or RTSP support. Check Synology's compatibility list; most Hikvision, Dahua, Axis and Reolink models are covered. Two camera licenses come free with every NAS.

Plan the storage first

Recordings go to /volume1/surveillance by default. On a NAS with more than one volume I prefer to put them on a separate ext4 volume so that constant writes do not fragment or fill the volume with user data. Change this in Surveillance Station → Recording → Storage → Add, pointing at a shared folder on the other volume, and set a quota there:

Storage name:   cams-vol2
Shared folder:  volume2/surveillance
Limit:          500 GB
Rotation:       by space, oldest recordings first

Rough sizing: a 1080p H.264 stream at 15 frames per second records about 1 GB per hour of continuous footage. Motion-only recording cuts that to a fraction depending on the scene.

Adding the camera

Surveillance Station → IP Camera → Add → Add Camera → Quick Setup. Fill in the address, port (usually 80 for ONVIF, 554 for RTSP), user name and password of a camera account you created for this purpose, not the camera's admin. Click "Load Capability"; if the brand and model are detected, pick the highest resolution stream for recording.

If the model is not in the list, choose brand "[User Define]" with type "Streaming - RTSP" and enter the path the camera documents, for example:

rtsp://192.168.1.50:554/Streaming/Channels/101

The path differs by vendor. Hikvision uses the one above, Dahua uses /cam/realmonitor?channel=1&subtype=0, Reolink uses /h264Preview_01_main.

Recording schedule

Under the camera's Edit → Recording tab:

  • Recording mode: Continuous for entrances and cash registers, Motion Detection for everything else.
  • Pre-recording: 5 seconds, post-recording: 10 seconds, so a motion clip includes what led up to the trigger.
  • Schedule: draw the week grid; I record motion 24 hours and add continuous during business hours where needed.
  • Retention: "Keep files within 30 days" and "Limit archive folder up to 100 GB", whichever comes first.

Motion detection can be done by the camera or by Surveillance Station. Camera-side detection is lighter on the NAS CPU and is what I use whenever the camera supports it via ONVIF events. NAS-side detection works with any stream, at the cost of decoding it; on a Celeron-based model four cameras is about the limit.

Notifications

Surveillance Station → Notification → Email and Push Service. Email uses the DSM notification settings from Control Panel → Notification; push goes to DS cam on your phone once you pair it. Under Rules, enable "Motion detected" for the cameras that matter and set a mute period so a windy day doesn't produce a hundred emails. I set 5 minutes, after learning the hard way what a windy day does to an inbox.

DS cam on the phone

Install DS cam from the app store, sign in with the NAS address or QuickConnect ID, and check that live view works over mobile data. The app uses the DSM port (5001) plus a range of high ports for streaming when not on QuickConnect. Play back a clip to confirm the recorded stream is readable.

Checking that it works

  • Live View shows the camera at the expected resolution and frame rate; the info overlay lists bit rate and codec.
  • Walk in front of the camera, wait a minute, then open Recording → the camera's list. A clip with type "Motion Detection" should exist, with the pre-recording seconds included.
  • Check disk usage from the shell to make sure recordings land on the intended volume:
du -sh /volume2/surveillance
ls -la /volume2/surveillance/*/
  • Surveillance Station → Home → System Status shows CPU load; keep it under 60 percent with all cameras recording.

Licensing

Every Synology includes two camera licenses. Additional cameras need a Camera License Pack, available as 1, 4 or 8 device packs, which are one-time purchases tied to the NAS. Add them under Surveillance Station → License → Add; the NAS must reach the internet during activation. Licenses can be released and moved to another Synology from the same page.

Things that go wrong

  • "Camera is disconnected" immediately after adding it, while the camera's own web page works. Usually the camera account lacks permission for the stream, or the RTSP port is not 554. Test the URL with VLC (Media → Open Network Stream) from a PC; if VLC cannot play it, Surveillance Station cannot either.
  • Recordings show a grey frame with "Cannot load recording" in the browser. The camera uses H.265, which the browser player does not decode; switch the recording stream to H.264 in the camera's own settings.
  • Motion detection triggers all night. Infrared mode causes noise and insects near the lens; lower the sensitivity in the Event Detection tab, reduce the detection area to exclude the sky and trees, or move detection to the camera.
  • "Insufficient licenses" when adding a third camera: activate a license pack or disable one of the existing cameras.

I don't send the surveillance share off-site; the volume of data makes it expensive and most footage is boring. What I do back up is the Surveillance Station configuration, exported from Home → Configuration Backup, so a rebuilt NAS finds its cameras again.