systems and methods to manage memory in a surveillance system are disclosed . the present invention discloses a rule - based storage clearance system or storage archive . a storage server has a user interface , a logic unit , and a storage device . a plurality of video footage files is continuously being streamed to the storage server and recorded on the storage device . the objective is to help erase or archive stored video footage based on static and dynamic surveillance parameters or rules . the rules can be applied either stream - wise or time - wise . the rule checks for clearing or archiving the storage by tallying various parameters such as : events associated with each stream , user bookmarks , the priority of individual streams , and the age of each stream , etc .