I have a handful of Reolink IP cameras with FTP capabilities. I bought a 6TB Seagate external USB drive to use as a staging area for FTP files from the cameras.

It's not working out too well.

I have limited testing to one wired RLC-420 5MP camera which is wired with a <1ms latency to the router.

When I observe the router it runs with each core in the 25-35% range for days.

I can turn on FTP and not use it and the CPU increases to closer to 35-40% on each core.

Once I ask the camera to start sending files it will successfully transfer a few files within a few minutes, and then stop.

I can see those files on the USB drive, and the they are readable.

But the CPUs go to 85-99% busy, and they stay there even after the files stop arriving.  They stay that busy even if I subsequently disable FTP at the camera so it stops trying.

That seems wrong.

I may be asking the router to do something it wasn't designed for, and if someone tells me that I may just move on. But all I really want is to have ~5 devices streaming writes at a rate that breaks down to ~20GB/day for a total of ~100GB/day. And if I could actually get it dto do that, then the next step would be to read some/all of that data out to a different file server for deeper retention.

Each camera has a 64GB micro-SD that holds 2-3 days of continuous video with high quality and low frame rates.

For the record, this is just a home use.  We live in a location which is isolated enough that physical security is not honestly possible. you could throw a rock throuch a window, or drive a truck through a wall and no one would hear/notice. So the only deterrent we have is to capture what happens all day long just in case...we also get some nice nature videos of deer/rabbits/woodchucks/birds/etc.

I'm thinking I'll end up opening cases with bothe Reolink and TP-Link, but I'm not overly optimistic on the outcome.  I would love to find out if there are other users who have faced similar challenges and won/lost at getting them running reliably.