Storage choices balance security, cost, bandwidth and retention period.

• Local NVR: a one-off cost with no subscription, smooth LAN playback and no uplink usage. The weakness is that destroying or stealing the unit destroys the footage, so place it somewhere protected and encrypt it.
• Cloud storage: recordings are off site, resistant to tampering and reachable from anywhere, which suits shops and homes with no one on site. The trade-offs are ongoing subscription cost and uplink limits, so typically only event clips or low-bitrate video are uploaded.
• Hybrid: keep full recording locally — commonly 30 to 90 days — and mirror important channels or events to the cloud. This balances completeness with resilience and is the recommended pattern for most commercial projects.

Whatever you choose, settle three questions first: how long must footage be kept, who may view it, and will it be used as evidence. Capacity and budget follow from those answers.