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MikeBravo
Luminary
Luminary

A friend with an Arlo Wirefree system like ours tells me that photos he is taking mysteriously disappear in a month.

 

I can't seem to find anything that lists this as limit. I had presumed that photos like recordings would be saved indefinately up to you space limit.

 

Anyone know for sure.

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steve_t
Master Master
Master

Storage is for 7 days on the basic free account or 30 days on the Premier account or 60 on the Elite. You should download anything you want to keep. There's pretty much no space limit currently, only a time limit

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steve_t
Master Master
Master

Storage is for 7 days on the basic free account or 30 days on the Premier account or 60 on the Elite. You should download anything you want to keep. There's pretty much no space limit currently, only a time limit

brh
Master
Master

What subscription plan is he on? I am on the basic plan and everything is deleted after 7 days.

 

Brian

MikeBravo
Luminary
Luminary

steve_t wrote:

Storage is for 7 days on the basic free account or 30 days on the Premier account or 60 on the Elite. You should download anything you want to keep. There's pretty much no space limit currently, only a time limit


Thanks Steve and Brian for your quick response.

 

We're both Premier. I don't take many photos, just save recordings----but I either download to save right away or delete what I don't need so I have sort of forgotten how it all works. However, I seem to remember something about when we bought the systems, about when your reach your space limit, the system automatically deletes the oldest recordings to make space. If that's correct, why is there a time limit at all? If its your space, its your space. What's the point of having the cloud in the first place if its so volatile?

 

In any event, I'll let him know and he'll just have to be fastidious in downloading the photos he takes.

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

The space limitation hasn't been enforced for years now - don't sweat it. I recommend NOT deleting videos since there are too many instances where folks want them back for some reason.

 

I have a Python script and directions that can be set up via the computer scheduler to automate the process so it's hands-off. If you're interested, PM me your email address (don't post it here).

MikeBravo
Luminary
Luminary

Thanks for the tip. That's good to know. We are careful to screen our videos and anything that isn't completely routine (like birds flying by and stray cats running through the yard), particulalry things like deliveries, is downloaded and saved for a good while.

 

However, it just makes the photo thing all the curiouser. Photos are so much smaller than videos. Why would they force delete them at all if space isn't an issue?

 

Must be something I'm not seeing here.

 

mhnatt
Luminary
Luminary

Cloud costs (be it a consumer or the business hosting) factor "time" in addition to "size" and "bandwidth".  For example, I pay X$ for a company to store Y amount of data over the period of Z days, and in addition, pay some sort of charge for bandwitdth.  That bandwidth includes the company itself shuffling data over to backups as well as you accessing it.

 

No matter how small or large the storage is, it is measurable and hence there needs to be a cut-off somewhere and to keep things simple, hainvg a policy that people purchase to keep things 7, 30, or 60 days is a lot easier to digest than having a matrix of confusion (7,30,60 days for video, 45, 90, 160 days for photos), etc. 

 

Keep it simple and since photos were manually snapped anyway, download them if they are important. I consider the Arlo Library as a temporary holding space.  Stuff that you want to keep around for a long time should be pulled down by you and let the true storage services like Dropbox, iCould, Google Drive, handle your long-term storage needs.

steve_t
Master Master
Master

I also recommend you don't delete anything (unless you accidentally walked in front of the camera naked and don't want anyone with access to see... DAMHIK 😛 )

MikeBravo
Luminary
Luminary

mhnatt wrote:

Cloud costs (be it a consumer or the business hosting) factor "time" in addition to "size" and "bandwidth".  For example, I pay X$ for a company to store Y amount of data over the period of Z days, and in addition, pay some sort of charge for bandwitdth.  That bandwidth includes the company itself shuffling data over to backups as well as you accessing it.

 

No matter how small or large the storage is, it is measurable and hence there needs to be a cut-off somewhere and to keep things simple, hainvg a policy that people purchase to keep things 7, 30, or 60 days is a lot easier to digest than having a matrix of confusion (7,30,60 days for video, 45, 90, 160 days for photos), etc. 

 

Keep it simple and since photos were manually snapped anyway, download them if they are important. I consider the Arlo Library as a temporary holding space.  Stuff that you want to keep around for a long time should be pulled down by you and let the true storage services like Dropbox, iCould, Google Drive, handle your long-term storage needs.


Ok, I get your point------however:

 

It seems then what you are saying is that, just  like with most cell phone providers who beat the drum about how fast their 4G is and how coupled with how wonderful their 'unlimited' data plan is, your experience will be so great----then they can throttle your speed at will and limit your data use, although I am paying extra (not chump change either) for XGB of storage, I'm actually not getting that unless I load up to the limit as fast as I can to get full value or Netgear will start dumping my data to 'save on cloud costs' despite it not yet reaching the limit I am paying for and despite what they advertise, right? 

 

If this is then true (not doubting you), then besides what appears to be poor quality control, poor customer service, and performance that departs from what all their glossy advertising clamors about, I am struggling to see (besides the obvious convenience of no wiring) what the real value is that I should be getting.

MikeBravo
Luminary
Luminary

steve_t wrote:

I also recommend you don't delete anything (unless you accidentally walked in front of the camera naked and don't want anyone with access to see... DAMHIK 😛 )


Steve, that's kind of a moot point since mhnatt says that Netgear will delete them at some point anyway. 

steve_t
Master Master
Master

MikeBravo wrote:

steve_t wrote:

I also recommend you don't delete anything (unless you accidentally walked in front of the camera naked and don't want anyone with access to see... DAMHIK 😛 )


Steve, that's kind of a moot point since mhnatt says that Netgear will delete them at some point anyway. 


Of course Netgear will delete them at some point, but that point will be after your subscription period. What makes it not a moot point is that so many users have manually deleted videos and then come to the community saying they want/need them back, all within their subscription period, and then are angry at Netgear

JamesC
Community Manager
Community Manager

MikeBravo,

 

Each plan is advertised as having up to a certain storage limit for a specific number of days as mentioned above. I'm not sure I follow why you wouldn't have been aware of this upon selecting a subscription.

 

For reference, this is a screenshot from the web client upon selecting a subscription:

 

 

You can also find more information about subscription plans here: What are the available Arlo subscription plans and how much cloud storage is available?

 

JamesC

mhnatt
Luminary
Luminary

Simply put, Arlo plans are focused on "storage days", not "storage size".  This business model makes sense for stuff like security video, whis is time based. The size limitation (very resonable allowance) is there to keep the crazies from bloating the storage. Just like in rental cars, you are paying by the days rented, with a millage limitation to keep the crazies from doing a Cannonball run. Your stuff is deleted when it hits the time or size limit, whichever comes first. Its common business practice to advertise limits which hit as soon as one or the other is met first. I see no misleading going on here.

 

Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, etc. plans are based on storage size and of course have a time limit (i.e. you are paying by the month). And the same is true for them but size focused: your data is affected if you hit the size limit or time period is gone, whichever hits first.

 

Two different factors (time vs size) are used by both concepts but a different emphasis depending on the use.

MikeBravo
Luminary
Luminary

JamesC wrote:

MikeBravo,

 

Each plan is advertised as having up to a certain storage limit for a specific number of days as mentioned above. I'm not sure I follow why you wouldn't have been aware of this upon selecting a subscription.

 

For reference, this is a screenshot from the web client upon selecting a subscription:

 

 

You can also find more information about subscription plans here: What are the available Arlo subscription plans and how much cloud storage is available?

 

JamesC


Well, JamesC, shame on me for not paying more attention and documenting things when I began to reseach Arlo for a friend back in January of 2017 which was some time even after learing via a firmware update that my Netgear Nighthawk R7000 suddenly wasn't allowed to run Arlo directly anymore----which at the time didn't matter as I hadn't invested in it at the time, but now sure would be handy.

 

I distinctly remember then-----and my friend who started all of this by getting me to do all of his research, confirms what I remember, that the advertising specified data amount, not days, or at least that's how we remember it. We seem to remember that the basic plan was good for 1 GB and the Premier which we both bought was good for 10 GB which seemed an excellent value.

 

That was why I was surprised that photos were deleted every 30 days. Perhaps we're both imagining this or seriously misremember, but  in any event, that's water under the bridge. It remains though, that having a time limit as opposed to a storage limit is far less useful and now that I am fully aware, I'll be sure to be more scrupulous in reviewing my videos with an eye to toward hastily downloading any one even remotely worth keeping.

 

This also raises another question. With the Arlo Pro and Pro 2 bases that allow the use of USB storage, does the control program\app allow you to separately delete from the cloud and USB device or does the USB device have to be removed and edited separately?

jguerdat
Guru Guru
Guru

The USB drive keeps the video - it's notdeleted locally.  Just tested this to be sure.

steve_t
Master Master
Master

The USB drive must be removed to view the contents of it. If you go into the settings for the base station > local storage, you'll see an option to allow the base to overwrite old videos or not