Retention Period

Thirty days is a common default, but the real number comes from how long incidents take to surface. Slip-and-fall and employment claims often arrive weeks later, and some licensed environments specify minimums in writing. Retention shorter than your claim window means the footage is gone exactly when it is requested.

Retention should be set per camera, not per system. Cash handling, entrances, and loading docks justify longer keeps at higher quality; a quiet corridor does not need the same. Tiering by camera is how sites get months on the cameras that matter without buying months of storage for all of them.