25 cams on i5 3.3Ghz 15GB RAM - system at absolute limit. How do I get more capacity out of it without replacing it with new?

[crw030]

All SSDs have a write-speed that they max out at when under sustained read/write loads (this is different than burst related speeds), the most economical ones will be the lowest.

Nevermind, I looked up some crappy SSDs and even they are over 200 MBps and even if you plugged it into the wrong SATA port on that motherboard it would be 3Gbps. This is likely not a problem so disregard. But writing your video to a separate SATA port attached to a spinning mechanical drive dedicated to the purpose would certainly also address this risk.

 

[crw030]

Stupid question, if you have 25 cameras (so I guess over $2500 worth of cameras), whats the major roadblock to upgrading the computer since it is relatively old by "computer years" ? I believe a 1-2 year old Intel refurb would be a wise investment in your situation because old computers develop "old computer" problems.

• CPU paste gets old and stops working leading to overheating
• Power Supplies (especially the cheap ones in prebuilts) start to develop issues
• motherboards start to get unreliable, in particular capacitors start to dry out
• driver support and upkeep is rarely done, and bug fixes/firmware etc for very old hardware are rarely done especially past the first couple years.
• fans spinning for 6+ years start to wear out (especially if you are poor at maintenance)
• *added* they draw more power (idle and load) than their newer counterparts to do the same work --while not necessarily the main reason to upgrade depending on your power cost, it should be a consideration.

I mean I run Blue Iris on an i7-2600k (NOT with 25 cameras), and until recently had (2) i7-9xx series (i7-925, i7-975 -- these draw over 112w & 145w at IDLE) gaming computers so I see the benefit of not throwing out WORKING hardware, but computers are fairly old after 3 years. Your BI computer is now 6 generations behind modern tech and the possibility you are beginning to outgrow it is pretty reasonable, considering you paid $300 for it.

 

[agurkas]

Fair assessment. I do mind how much power I draw, since I am trying to keep my house Net Zero with solar production. So every device matters. All these switches, cams, other PoEs

 

[essjay]

Have you tried not accessing over RDP? I'm convinced this caused overhead in my previous setup. Try UI3 or a monitor connected directly to the BI machine.

In fairness though, you probably should have a more powerful machine.