There are many options when it comes to keeping an eye on your safety and possessions. We highly recommend cloud-based systems over traditional, locally recorded systems for the fact that theft or fire can destroy the recording. As long as the internet is up, your recordings cannot be lost. Actual case - We were hired to discover why no recorded videos existed on a local system. We opened the unit to inspect the hard drive, and it was missing! An employee, which one, nobody knows, took the DVR apart, removed the hard drive and reassembled it. Our preferred surveillance equipment supplier is Ring but, we've setup many, many others in our 20+ years of surveillance work. Every situation is different.