Technical: Recording & Archiving to Cloudflare R2 guide illustration
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Technical: Recording & Archiving to Cloudflare R2

Table of Contents

Cloudflare R2 is an S3-compatible object storage service that is uniquely suited for cam recording archives due to one critical feature: Zero Egress Fees.

In a traditional cloud setup (AWS S3), downloading a 50GB 4K recording would cost you several dollars in data transfer. With R2, you only pay for storage, making it the ideal “Cloud NAS” for your library.

1) Cost Analysis: R2 vs. Local Storage

MetricLocal 10TB HDDCloudflare R2 (10TB)
Initial Cost~$200 (Once)$0
Monthly Cost~$2 (Power)~$150 ($0.015/GB)
DurabilitySingle-disk failure risk99.999999999% (11 9s)
AccessibilityLAN only (without VPN)Global / Web-Speed

Recommendation: Use R2 for your “Favorites” archive—the content you never want to lose even if your house burns down—while keeping the bulk of your raw captures on local HDDs.

2) Configuring R2 with Rclone

To use R2 with Cam Software, the easiest path is via Rclone.

  1. Create a Bucket: In the Cloudflare Dashboard, create a bucket named capturegem-archive.
  2. API Tokens: Generate an API token with Object Read & Write permissions.
  3. Rclone Config: 
    rclone config
# Choose s3
# Provider: Cloudflare
# access_key_id: <your_key>
# secret_access_key: <your_secret>
# endpoint: https://<account_id>.r2.cloudflarestorage.com

3) Lifecycle Rules for Automatic Deletion

R2 allows you to set “Lifecycle Policies” to keep costs under control. You can configure a policy to automatically delete files in your temp/ folder after 30 days, while keeping files in your favorites/ folder forever.

  • Action: Navigate to Bucket -> Settings -> Object Lifecycle.
  • Rule: “Delete objects older than 30 days with prefix temp/”.

4) Real-time Cloud Recording (Advanced)

If you have a high-speed fiber connection (1Gbps+ Upload), you can mount your R2 bucket as a local drive using Rclone Mount.

rclone mount r2:capturegem-archive X: --vfs-cache-mode full

This allows Cam Software to write directly to the cloud. Warning: This is only recommended for stable connections. If your internet drops, the recorderd process will fail.

Summary

Cloudflare R2 is the professional’s choice for off-site backups. By combining Zero Egress with Rclone, you can build a global, high-durability archive that rivals enterprise-grade media setups.

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