Deciding on a "workstation"

C

Coderedpl

n3wb
Sep 24, 2018
12
4
New York
Hello everyone,

I'm just looking for some friendly advice and maybe a nudge in the right direction. Long story short, I had blue iris in the past running on a gaming laptop, with 5 cameras (3 exterior, 2 interior), but with a new place of living, it's time to get a bit more serious, as-well-as efficient since the laptop definitely has some serious downfalls.

From the looks of it, with the new place, with some planning, I'm at around 8 cameras total. The thing is, I'm not entirely certain whether or not I will be in need of more. If my estimates in coverage are correct, I'll be ok.

So with that in mind, I've thought about getting an NVR system, but seeing as the mobile apps seem subpar, I already have a POE switch & 5 existing cameras (3 different manufacturers), and compatibility of future cameras could be an issue, another Blue Iris setup, seems to make more sense. So now I'm looking at workstations.

It seems like I will be around the 500-800 MP/s range for the cameras, in reality, in the near future, I don't think I will exceed 10 cameras.

I'm also looking to stay around the 200$ mark for the workstation, obviously, the less the better but I want to have something decent enough to not go crazy with power consumption.
Don't care too much about hard drives as I have 2TB if I remember correctly, and if needed I will be getting a WD Purple. OS doesn't matter either as I have licenses I can use.

I've found the following for "average" prices, all come with 8gb of ram.
i5 7600 259
i5 7500 233
i5 6500 180
i5 6600 220

I've seen a few people recommend a 4590 but those go for around ~100$ give or take shipping and such but with 4GB of ram, so add another 30$ish and I'm looking at a price similar to the i5-6500, which in my opinion would make more sense.

Does anyone have experience with the above? Maybe one better than the other? Any advice is greatly appreciated!
 
I doubt you'll see much difference between any of those. Not worth too much analysis for marginal difference. Buy on price and machine config/design/layout and the best deal you can find.

If you want to start running the price/performance comparisons between those with a greater difference then more so depending on requirements.
 
fenderman said:
Grab the i5-6500. The sixth gen adds intel hardware acceleration for h.265. You will need to use the substream feature which is great, see wiki. $150 HP EliteDesk 800 G2 Desktop Intel Core i5-6500 3.2GHz 8GB 500GB Windows 10 | eBay
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Good call, I looked at a few elitedesk stations and then focused on Dell, this seems like quite a decent deal in comparison to the others I've found.
Mike A. said:
I doubt you'll see much difference between any of those. Not worth too much analysis for marginal difference. Buy on price and machine config/design/layout and the best deal you can find.

If you want to start running the price/performance comparisons between those with a greater difference then more so depending on requirements.
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Figured that's probably what I'll end up doing, just finding best deal. I just thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to post up in case there is something drastic I should avoid.
looney2ns said:
Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris | IP Cam Talk
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I've seen that.
 
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Coderedpl said:
Weirdly enough this was like the best deal all over ebay lol
Purchased, thank you for the link
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Did the machine come? Did you get it loaded? How is it working out for you.

I am looking at a similar camera count and same system, just curious if it time for me too to pull the trigger. thanks
 
kolbasz said:
Did the machine come? Did you get it loaded? How is it working out for you.

I am looking at a similar camera count and same system, just curious if it time for me too to pull the trigger. thanks
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Super late reply, notification email got buried.

I did get the system, rather quickly i can say. I got it booted up and fully updated but that's as far as I went with it so far. Need to finish my camera installation, wire everything up and then boot up blue iris.

One challenge I didn't foresee or rather didn't research well enough, was the lack of space for more than 2 (3.5") hard drives.

It came with a 3.5" 500gb, and I have two 2TB (3.5") drives I wanted to put in, but it only has space for 2 (3.5") drives total + 1 (2.5")

I was thinking to cut the "bracket" for the 2.5 drive and ghetto rigging the 3rd drive in that spot.

I have a hdd enclosure I used to use but with any power outage, it doesn't restart, so that's a no go.
 
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IAmATeaf said:
Whip the existing 500gb drive out and replace it with an SSD, no need to go all ghetto.
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^^^^^^^^^^^ Exactly this, a small SSD for Windows OS boot drive won't cost you much and keep you from going ghetto trying to make 3 hard drives fit as well. I just picked up name brand 250GB for $35 on Amazon because I wanted a really small one for testing a used DT122-BE mini-pc I bought cheap.
 
kolbasz said:
Odd, I thought the elite desk has room for 2 3.5 and a 2 5.

Seems all the looking I did was wrong.
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No, you're correct. I just realized what i typed didn't make sense. I was a bit tired that day ‍♂️
IAmATeaf said:
Whip the existing 500gb drive out and replace it with an SSD, no need to go all ghetto.
Click to expand...
crw030 said:
^^^^^^^^^^^ Exactly this, a small SSD for Windows OS boot drive won't cost you much and keep you from going ghetto trying to make 3 hard drives fit as well. I just picked up name brand 250GB for $35 on Amazon because I wanted a really small one for testing a used DT122-BE mini-pc I bought cheap.
Click to expand...

Yea I guess I could do that, if I find something decently priced and just use the 500gb for storage or something.
 
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