Another hardware question

E

EricB

Getting the hang of it
Jan 6, 2023
146
92
KS
I know this has been asked in the past (many times) and apologize for asking again, but I want to make sure that I get this right the 1st time and not make a dumb mistake that will cause me to start over partway down the road.

I am researching hardware for the Blue Iris computer that will run my camera setup and have some questions.

My initial configuration is probably going to be 8ish cameras and 1 doorbell.

Since I have not played with Hardware in 15+ years, I am unsure of what the various processor models are.

Reading various posts that talk about hardware (dang there are lot) it seems that an Intel i3, i5 or i7 are recommended.

Knowing Windows and how it operates, I figure I want a minimum of 16gb RAM but probably 32gb.

I know an SSD or preferably and NVMe for the OS and Blue Iris software drive is required (I have a 256gb NVMe that is not in use).
Also, I will need a larger drive for the video recording.
Somewhere I read (but can't find now) that for Video Record the disk space usage was 1-2mb per camera per hour (please let me know if this is incorrect).

I would rather buy a little more than needed now and have room for future camera growth rather than having to setup and reconfigure a new box in the future.

For Blue Iris 5.x running on Windows 10 Pro supporting 8 cameras initially up to about 12-14 (or more depending on what my research determines), my questions come down to this:
1. What processor/generation/speed is preferable?
i3 - what generation and what speed
i5 - what generation and what speed
i7 - what generation and what speed

2. NewEgg has a number of refurbed Dell Optiplex boxes with either an i5 or i7 for less than $400.
Are NewEggs prices on refurbs generally in line with other places?

3. When it comes to the video storage drive, is WD or Segate more reliable these days?
Is a 10TB drive sufficient or do I need larger?
What size cache should I be looking at on this drive?
What is the difference between the WD PURZ and the WD PURP drives?

Any help would be very much appreciated!

Thanks,

Eric
 
I am going to toss out a couple points of reference that do not answer many of your questions but should be helpful.

I run six cameras, three record 24/7 (2 Dahua 4mp 5442 & 1 2mp 2231) and three just on motion. I run a Ryzen 2700 with 16 GB of RAM. With my setup my CPU hovers in the 8 - 10% range typically, my RAM usage runs around 3 - 4 GB. BI & Win 10 sits on a NVMe M2 drive by itself. Footage is recorded to a WD Purple 4 TB drive. I get 30 days of recording with the above setup which is plenty for me.

INTEL is preferred for BI but AMD Ryzen works with no issues. WD makes two versions of the Purple drive, the one has more cache.

Read Me
 
EricB said:
Somewhere I read (but can't find now) that for Video Record the disk space usage was 1-2mb per camera per hour (please let me know if this is incorrect).
Click to expand...
This seems very low to me. It is dependent on all sorts of settings. I record 24/7 and use high bit rates on my LPR cams but normal on other cams. My LPR cams, which are 2MP cams, use about 4GB every 20-30 minutes.
 
samplenhold said:
This seems very low to me. It is dependent on all sorts of settings. I record 24/7 and use high bit rates on my LPR cams but normal on other cams. My LPR cams, which are 2MP cams, use about 4GB every 20-30 minutes.
Click to expand...

I get 4 GB per four hours files with the setup I posted in the first response above. So roughly one GB per hour with three active cams and a few motion alerts on the other three.

Edited to add, now that I think about it I get 4 GB files but that is per camera on my 4MP Dahua 5442.
 
EricB said:
Is a 10TB drive sufficient or do I need larger?
Click to expand...
I use WD Purple drives and have not had an issue. I have three 10TB drives as that was the largest drive that I could afford when I started. I divide up my cams between the three drives.

Only you can say if 10TB is enough. It will depend on the number of cams, the size and bitrate selected, and how long you want to keep the video.

For my 22 cams on 30 TB of space, gets me about 3 weeks of storage.
 
Speaking in generalities, the Intel processors had a significant performance jump for generation 8. As an example, a gen 8 i5 is a bit more powerful than a gen 7 i7, and a gen 8 i3 is on par with earlier i5s. Also, somewhere before gen 8, h265 hardware encoding was introduced. In summary, if you're running win10 or linux, I would recommend going gen 8 or newer. If you want to run win7, you're stuck with gen 6 or older. (I know you said win10, just adding that last comment for completeness).
 
  • Like
Reactions: fenderman
With the use of substreams, you can get by with an older machine.

If you have the money to buy an 8th gen or newer, go for it, but it money is tight, you can find some really good deals on older systems that are still very capable.

Someone here is running a 3rd gen with 12 cameras at like 30% CPU.

Someone here recently picked up a 4th gen for $25 at a government auction and it can run a lot of cameras.

Do not use the graphics card for hardware acceleration as that has been problematic with newer versions of BI for many people.

Around the time AI was introduced in BI, many here had their system become unstable with hardware acceleration on (even if not using DeepStack or CodeProject). Some have also been fine. I started to see that error when I was using hardware acceleration.

This hits everyone at a different point. Some had their system go wonky immediately, some it was after a specific update, and some still don't have a problem, yet the trend is showing running hardware acceleration will result in a problem at some point.

However, with substreams being introduced, the CPU% needed to offload video to a GPU is more than the CPU% savings seen by offloading to a GPU. Especially after about 12 cameras, the CPU goes up by using a GPU and hardware acceleration.

My CPU % went down by not offloading to a GPU.

It is best to just use the GPU now for AI and use substreams for BI.

Follow EVERY optimization in the wiki and you should be fine:

Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage

Blue Iris uses a lot of CPU time. In most Blue Iris installations, your CPU is the limiting factor which determines how many cameras you can have. As such, it is extremely important to optimize your configuration to ensure you can get the most out of your system while consuming the least...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com

My humble i5-4590 still humming along with 30+ cams:

I see people posting about their i7-xxxx system bogging down with less than 10 cameras so I wanted to update my setup. I have ~33 cams running on my BI system: HP Elitedesk 800 G1 tower i5-4590 @ 3.3GHz 16GB ram 12TB total purple drives for storage 30+ total cams currently - 22 cams visible in...
ipcamtalk.com ipcamtalk.com
 
I recommend one of these. They have proven to be very reliable for BI. Small case, and energy efficient. Silent operation. Room for two HDD.
Buy the WD purple drives. Buy a small SSD or M.2 drive to put windows, Bi and Bi database on.
Newegg is high $$$ on refurbs.
$130.00 get's you this: Link here
 
As an eBay Associate IPCamTalk earns from qualifying purchases.
  • Like
Reactions: samplenhold
Thanks guys. What was throwing me with the Intel was the whole i3, i5, i7 and generations and reading some generations of i3 were more powerful than previous generations of the i5.

The wiki says Intel onboard graphics are enough, is there a practical difference between the Intel 530 vs the Intel 630?

Thanks,

Eric
 
  • Like
Reactions: CanCuba
looney2ns said:
I recommend one of these. They have proven to be very reliable for BI. Small case, and energy efficient. Silent operation. Room for two HDD.
Buy the WD purple drives. Buy a small SSD or M.2 drive to put windows, Bi and Bi database on.
Newegg is high $$$ on refurbs.
$130.00 get's you this: Link here
Click to expand...
Can you send the link?
 
As an eBay Associate IPCamTalk earns from qualifying purchases.
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom