AmcrestNV4108E-A2 4K 8CH POE NVR (1080p/3MP/4MP/5MP/8MP) POE Network Video Recorder - Supports up to 8 x 8MP/4K IP Cameras, 8-Channel Power Over Ethernet Supports up to 10TB HDD (Not Included)

I have had two POE Amcrest cameras now for just over a year. My biggest regret now is not having a reliable source of data-storage. Prior to having this NVR I tried several solutions to avoid "spending" more money.1) Internal storage using the microsd. (These failed within a week...)2) FTP storage - (SUPER unreliable, and EXTREMELY challenging to setup... Most FTP services only support one channel at a time! So imagine trying to deal with that...) Not to mention accessing these files means MANUAL WORK!!!3) NAS - NAS solution was not bad, but still the same situation with manually accessing files... No decent UI to support these files being saved here...NVR is a game changer... DO NOT BUY CAMERAS without this being part of your shopping list. Buy less cameras and START with if you have to!1) Setup pretty simple. I would suggest buying a different HD (I personally like Seagates...) Simply unscrew and place harddrive and screw into place... Plugin using the cables provided.2) Hook up... POE ports make for less POE switches. 8 is plenty for my house... I would even say for "most" houses... Their is a cheaper model of this that seemingly does not have POE... I would say do not go with this, as you will later have to upgrade. This device also has HDMI and VGA output. I personally plugged this directly into my TV. Now I can stream all of my connected cameras to this...3) Setup... Setup overall is pretty simple and easy to do... Biggest issue is understanding which windows and controls... Mouse can take a minute to get used to as left click triggers, right click exits... Various windows for managing each Camera can be difficult, but again once you get the hang of where things are... It gets easier.My cameras were mostly setup already so mostly just had to have my NVR log into each.4) LIVE... Out of the gate the NVR is accessible via web browser, or app. I use the app more often... Now if you leave your home network you will need to have some basic Networking skills to do port forwarding. Having a DNS service is super helpful. Most routers now days have these built in, and just have to be configured.5) Reviewing... NVR's make things SO much better. Yes its still a bit clunky. However, now I can go into any given date and pull up a feed. I wish I could scan faster, but maybe that will happen in the future.. Technically it would be better to just have it setup for alerts, but I prefer 24x7 recording. Much less chance of missing something.----CONS / Issues1) The fan on the NVR is rather loud. I expect either it will "quiet" down over time. If not it appears to be a standard fan, so likely can be exchanged. Definitely do not use this without one as the POE, and harddrive will overheat... Especially if running multiple channels...2) Interfaces - These are still a bit difficult to manage, but not impossible. Take some time getting used to where things are located. My preference is using the APP to manage each option set for the cameras. Even the Web Interface as then you can export/import much easier in my opinion. (templating makes this so much better to manage multiple cameras!)OVERALLDo not start into this path of cameras without an NVR. Period... It changed my whole setup, and is so much more reliable.

Updated from an older Amcrest model... super easy setup. Maybe the firmware is far more advanced but there are a lot more options than my previous model. Literally plug and play with my older cameras. The fan is a little on the loud side but it's pretty much white noise at this point.

I've only had this for a week but so far I am very happy with this purchase. I needed to replace an NVR from CCTV Pros that went bad just out of warranty. Their cheapest replacement was 4 times more than what I paid for this. My POE cameras (5 from CCTV Pros, and 2 ONVIF) were recognized immediately when plugged in. The ONVIF cameras were set with static IP addresses, so I did have to set them to DHCP first. The firmware is very similar to my old CCTV Pros NVR. What surprised me the most was when I transferred the hard drive from the old NVR to this one, I did not have to reformat it. Actually, all the previously recorded video integrated seamlessly with the Amcrest firmware. Setup was much easier than I anticipated. I can not comment on the P2P and app that Amcrest provides as I use my own cloud (Home Assistant) to view the video stream remotely. That setup was also much easier than anticipated (using rtsp streams from the NVR to Generic Camera entities in HA). Hopefully it holds up over time. For now, I am very pleased with this purchase and consider it an excellent value.Edit: After running this for a week, I discovered an issue with the CCTV Pro cameras. Not a big issue for me, but when the cameras switch to night mode, a "Tampering" alarm is triggered causing the video to start recording and it doesn't stop until another event occurs. This was causing all the cameras to record all night long. In order to prevent it from happening (I only want to record when Motion is detected), I had to disable the Tampering Alarm on all the cameras in question. The ONVIF cameras did not have this issue, so either they work as they should, or they are so cheap that they don't have a Tampering detection feature.