Transcoding engine for Surveillance?

DS118, DS228, NVR1218

Hi, I have a DS215j running 2 x 4MP cameras at H265 (with a 4TB Seagate NVR HDD). I am hitting about 40% RAM use and about 52% CPU when streaming both cameras Live. I am looking to add another 2 same spec cameras and suspect I will be needing something beefier. This will be used for Surveillance Station only (my DS215j will stay as regular storage) so I started to look at NVR1218 (thanks to no need for extra licenses).

I have used the Synology tool which advises on which NAS to use for my needs but that just makes things more confusing. It states “Total Framerate” for each unit but I have no idea what that is calculated on. It won’t suggest the NVR1218 due to my choice of H265 and instead recommends DS118/228 due to the built-in video decoding/transcoding capabilities. But as I am using it only to view/manage remotely, does that transcoding hardware matter? The box will simply be dealing with a relatively low bandwidth bitstream (well within 1Gbps LAN specs and the specs of the HDD), and the playback is happening on my PC/Phone, so is that hardware video decoder/transcoder of any use to my scenario?

I am leaning towards the DS118 as I only need single drive and while with 2 additional licenses, it seems more efficient than NVR1218. This would be double the RAM and well over twice the CPU of my current unit (very rougly.. not benchmarked ofcourse). I am hoping I don’t need to jump to the 2GB RAM of the DS228.

What do you think? Is my thinking right in that unless I am playing back media on the unit itself, the amount of horsepower actually needed for my cameras is not that great?

NVR1218 similar to Synology j series NAS features a low-performance dual-core processor. DS118 has twice as big memory (1GB) and its 2-bay version DS218 comes with 2GB RAM. Transcoding engine helps to convert video files when live streaming or playback your surveillance videos over the internet. But CPU and RAM also helps to maximise Gigabit network capabilities. You can add additional licences quite easily, NVR models have these licences included in the price already. But not always you may need 8 or more licences, that would make you pay for something you don’t use.

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