Dahua CCTV in the UAE: NVR, Camera & Storage Sizing for Offices and Retail

Most CCTV systems in UAE offices and shops are sized by guesswork, and the two things people get wrong are storage and PoE budget. Cameras are the easy part. The questions that decide whether a system actually works are how many channels the recorder can handle at your chosen resolution, how many days of footage you can keep, and whether the switch can power everything you have plugged into it. This guide works through sizing a Dahua system from first principles, in the order you should decide things.

Quick reference: sizing in five steps

• 1. Count coverage points, not rooms: every entrance, till, stockroom door, corridor junction and blind corner.
• 2. Pick resolution per camera: 4 MP for general coverage, 8 MP (4K) only where you need to identify faces or plates.
• 3. Size the NVR by channel count and, more importantly, by total incoming bitrate in Mbps.
• 4. Calculate storage from bitrate x hours x days, then add 20 per cent headroom.
• 5. Check the PoE budget on the switch or NVR against the total camera draw, including IR and heaters.

Step 1: how many cameras a UAE site actually needs

Count coverage points rather than rooms. A typical small Dubai office of twenty staff needs four to eight: main entrance inside and out, reception, the server or comms room door, and one or two open-plan overviews. A retail unit needs more because of the till positions: entrance, each till from behind the customer, the stockroom door, the fitting-room corridor entrance (never inside), and one overview per aisle block. A small shop commonly lands at six to twelve.

Be deliberate about which cameras are for detection and which are for identification. A wide overview tells you something happened; it will not give you a usable face. Identification requires the face to occupy a meaningful part of the frame, which in practice means a dedicated camera at head height on the entrance or till, not a ceiling dome across the room. One well-placed identification camera is worth four overviews.

Step 2: resolution, and why more is not always better

Dahua's range runs from 2 MP through 4 MP to 8 MP and beyond. 4 MP is the sensible default for general coverage in 2026: noticeably better than 2 MP, and far kinder to storage and bandwidth than 8 MP. Reserve 8 MP for the two or three cameras where you genuinely need to identify a face or read a plate.

Higher resolution costs you three times over: more bitrate, so a bigger NVR; more storage, so fewer days retained; and more light needed, because smaller pixels on the same sensor size perform worse at night. In a UAE car park or a dim stockroom, a good 4 MP camera with strong infrared will out-perform an 8 MP camera with the same lens. Check the minimum illumination figure and the IR range on the datasheet rather than the megapixel count.

Step 3: sizing the NVR by bitrate, not just channels

This is where systems are most often under-specified. An NVR advertised as 16-channel also has an incoming bandwidth limit, typically quoted in Mbps. Sixteen cameras at 4 MP and a reasonable frame rate can easily exceed the limit of a budget 16-channel unit, and the symptom is dropped frames or cameras that silently stop recording.

Work it out: a 4 MP camera on H.265 at 15 fps typically produces around 4 Mbps; an 8 MP camera around 8 Mbps. Ten 4 MP cameras plus two 8 MP is roughly 56 Mbps, so an NVR rated at 80 Mbps incoming is comfortable and one rated at 64 Mbps is marginal. Always specify H.265 or Dahua's Smart H.265+ rather than H.264, which roughly halves the bitrate for the same picture. Browse the recorder and camera range in our Dahua collection.

Step 4: storage and how many days you keep

The formula is straightforward. Total bitrate in Mbps, divided by 8 to get megabytes per second, multiplied by 86,400 seconds per day, gives megabytes per day. Divide by a million for terabytes.

Worked example: twelve cameras at an average 4.5 Mbps is 54 Mbps total. That is 6.75 MB/s, or roughly 583 GB per day of continuous recording. Thirty days needs about 17.5 TB, so a four-bay NVR with 4 x 6 TB surveillance drives gives you 24 TB and comfortable headroom.

Two ways to cut that substantially. First, record on motion or on smart events rather than continuously in low-traffic areas such as stockrooms and corridors, which commonly halves consumption. Second, use a lower frame rate on overview cameras; 12 to 15 fps is perfectly usable for CCTV and 25 fps is rarely necessary. Always use surveillance-rated drives designed for continuous write, not desktop drives.

On retention, thirty days is the common commercial baseline in the UAE, and certain premises types are subject to specific requirements from the relevant authority. Confirm what applies to your premises with your licensing authority or security consultant before sizing, because retention drives the whole storage calculation and is expensive to change later.

Step 5: the PoE budget nobody checks

Every IP camera draws power over the network cable. A fixed dome typically draws 5 to 8 W; a PTZ with a heater can draw 30 W or more. An NVR with eight built-in PoE ports usually has a total budget of around 80 to 120 W, which is fine for eight domes and not fine for eight cameras including two PTZs.

Add up the maximum draw of every camera, including infrared illuminators at night when they are all on at once, and check it against the switch or NVR budget with at least 25 per cent spare. Where the budget is exceeded, use a separate PoE switch from our networking range rather than trying to economise. Remember the 100-metre limit on Ethernet runs, and plan a fibre leg or a mid-span switch for anything longer.

Putting it in the rack, and keeping it running

Mount the NVR and switch properly, on a protected supply. A CCTV system on unprotected mains loses recordings every time the power flickers, so a small UPS on the recorder and switch is a genuine requirement rather than a luxury; our UPS range covers it, and our guide to UPS and power protection covers sizing. Where the system feeds a monitoring position, a video wall or a large commercial display makes multi-camera viewing practical.

Finally, plan maintenance. Dome covers in the UAE collect dust quickly and a dusty dome destroys image quality faster than any specification choice. Schedule a clean and a recording check quarterly, and verify that every camera is actually writing to disk, because the common failure mode is a camera that dropped off the recorder months ago and nobody noticed.

FAQ

How many CCTV cameras does a small UAE office need?

Typically four to eight for a twenty-person office: entrance inside and out, reception, the comms room door and one or two open-plan overviews. Count coverage points rather than rooms.

Is 4K CCTV worth it?

Only on the two or three cameras where you need to identify a face or read a plate. 8 MP costs more bitrate, more storage and more light, and a good 4 MP camera usually performs better in dim conditions.

How much storage do I need for 30 days?

Multiply total bitrate in Mbps by 10,800 to get roughly GB per day. Twelve cameras averaging 4.5 Mbps is about 583 GB per day, so thirty days needs around 17.5 TB before headroom.

How long must CCTV footage be kept in the UAE?

Thirty days is the common commercial baseline, and some premises types have specific requirements set by the relevant authority. Confirm what applies to your premises before sizing storage.

What is a PoE budget and why does it matter?

It is the total power a switch or NVR can supply across its PoE ports, commonly 80 to 120 W. Cameras draw 5 to 8 W each, PTZ units 30 W or more, so the budget is easily exceeded and cameras then fail intermittently.

Sizing a CCTV system for a UAE office or shop? Send Procure your floor plan and camera count for a specified quote, or browse our Dahua range and access control systems.