Best hard drive setup for Blue Iris?

[Sachi]

Hi folks, just looking to see if my BI, DB & storage is the best optimization with my set up. I have a OptiPlex 7040 with a Max of 3 Drives, actually has a DVD drive so maybe I could add a 4th.

Current set up
C:\ 240GB SSD C:\Program Files\Blue Iris 5, C:\BlueIris\Alerts (170GB free)
Z:\ 240GB NVMe Z:\BlueIris\db (220GB free)
S:\ 6TB Purple S:\BlueIris\New, S:\BlueIris\Stored (NEW limit size 5000GB, Stored limit size 100GB) 600GB free

Should I move alerts to Z drive?
Should I remove the "BlueIris" parent folder from Z & S drives?

I don't recall why I setup New & Stored size limits that way, Any improvement suggestions welcome.
I am planning on 6 or 7 cameras so on a 6TB drive that's probably only 20 days storage. Could I move the Stored to a external drive later down the track or just get a bigger purple drive?
Goal would be a comfortable 30 days storage but 20 days is fine for now..

 

[wittaj]

Don't use STORED - you are just burning CPU and the drive moving stuff around on the same drive. Only use it for external to the box like a NAS. So set STORED to 0.

I would put BI and the DB on the same drive.

Alerts could go on the Purple drive.

 

[Sachi]

Will do thanks for that.

I noticed there is nothing in my alerts folder but I have motion detection on several cameras and alerts clips in BI. Any other setting or location I should look?

 

[wittaj]

The alerts folder is a weird one - it holds all the thumbnails yet you don't see the files, even if you turn on to see hidden files - unless you are saving as hi-rez or burning AI images. So if you were to make that 0GB all your thumbnails for the triggers will disappear.

If you are not going to do AI or hi rez alerts, then make the limit size 1GB as that is more than enough. And then tell it to delete instead of Stored.

But if you are going to do BI AI and save the .dat files, then you will want the Alerts folder to be a decent size.

 

[Mike A.]

The alerts folder is a weird one - it holds all the thumbnails yet you don't see the files, even if you turn on to see hidden files.

Do you mean in Windows or talking about something else? I can see mine. I know because I have a gazillion of them and clean it out now and then.

 

[wittaj]

Do you mean in Windows or talking about something else? I can see mine. I know because I have a gazillion of them and clean it out now and then.

Are you saving hi-rez or AI burn in photos? Those you can see, it are the thumbnails for all the triggers that you don't see.

But if you aren't doing anything fancy and just have triggers do database only, then the thumbnails don't show in Windows.

I have 45 days of alert thumbnails for the triggers in BI yet my alerts folder is empty, even with it showing hidden files:

If I delete this folder or change the Alerts to 0GB then those 45 days of thumbnail alerts disappear.

 

[Mike A.]

Ahhh... gotcha. Yes, I have .jpgs being saved for my LPR cams and a couple of others. That's what's in there.

The thumbnails must be saved somewhere else or otherwise derived from the video. BI can't hide files in some way from Windows' native view.

 

[Sachi]

Sweet, I'm not doing anything clever with hi rez alerts or AI as yet, so good to know this is normal.

 

[jaydeel]

The thumbnails must be saved somewhere else or otherwise derived from the video.

It’s always been my understanding that the thumbnail images are stored in the database itself.

To check this, I just opened the clips.dat file in a hex editor and searched for the JFIF Start of Image (SOI) marker (bytes FF D8).

REF: Per the JPEG File Interchange Format (JFIF)... any JPEG file or stream is written according to the JFIF must start with a SOI (Start-of-Image) marker (the two bytes 0xFF, 0xD8) and end with the EOI (End-of-Image) marker (two bytes, 0xFF, 0xD9). These two markers will not be found anywhere else in a JPEG file/stream.​

Sure enough, there were thousands of hits.

I also searched for JFIF End of Image (EOI) bytes (FF D9).
I was expecting the result to be a matching number of hits. But the number was fewer (11,104 vs 13,598). I've no idea why this might be the case. I scanned through the SOI marker results and did not see any that were NOT followed the 'JFIF' bytes. So I don't think the search found any SOI markers that were not part of a JPG file.

 

[Mike A.]

Yeah, I looked a little more last night and tried deleting various files and seeing the effect and that's what I ended up thinking. I didn't try deleting that file (for obvious reasons), but you can delete pretty much any others associated with that cam/clip (.bvr, .dat for that cam, etc.) and the thumbnail remains. Didn't seem to be any other place that it could be stored.

 

[Sachi]

So I a have made the changes to my clips & archiving storage,
C:\ 240GB SSD C:\Program Files\Blue Iris 5, C:\db
Z:\ 240GB NVMe Z:\Alerts
S:\ 6TB Purple S:\New (limit size 5000GB) S:\Stored (limit size 0GB)

I also removed the parent folders, probably wont make any difference, well maybe 0.0001 of a micro second.
db moved to C drive and alerts to Z drive which means the NVMe Z drive will probably be empty/unused. Would having the Blue Iris program, db & Alerts all on the NVMe drive be a better choice performance wise?
Stored set to 0 and will move to an external drive when I have a need for longer retention.
Thanks for the help

 

[looney2ns]

SouthernYankee BI Allocation

 

[Sir V Lance]

SouthernYankee BI Allocation

Thanks for that link looney2ns. Very good info.

To go a bit beyond the allocation topic (but hopefully not off the thread topic)...

Is there some common advice on the pros and cons of continuous video recording? I didn't find anything in my quick forum search. I do understand new vs stored, but I'm not sure I have a good grasp of clips vs alerts vs. database. I was originally thinking camera AI would trigger recording, but now it sounds like that triggers clips/alerts, and I should record everything from every camera 24/7?

Appreciate any/all advice. Thanks.

 

[wittaj]

Thanks for that link looney2ns. Very good info.

To go a bit beyond the allocation topic (but hopefully not off the thread topic)...

Is there some common advice on the pros and cons of continuous video recording? I didn't find anything in my quick forum search. I do understand new vs stored, but I'm not sure I have a good grasp of clips vs alerts vs. database. I was originally thinking camera AI would trigger recording, but now it sounds like that triggers clips/alerts, and I should record everything from every camera 24/7?

Appreciate any/all advice. Thanks.

As good as the AI is, it could always miss if you record just on trigger.

Continuous allows you to piece together events that wouldn't necessarily be triggered.

Being able to record Cont+triggers is the best of both worlds - you get 24/7 recording of the substream and then mainstream for the triggers. This uses a lot less storage space than 24/7 mainstream.

See this thread:

Why I like Continuous Recording (aka 24/7)

So a guy came to the door yesterday, and while my wife did not open the door, it kind of spooked her out. She said he seem suspicious saying he found a driver's license on the lawn and wanted to know if it belonged to her. So when I got back from the range, I checked out the cams. This is one...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[samplenhold]

Here is another thread with respect to continuous recording. If these cams were not on continuous recording, I would never have recorded much of the info needed.

Use of Overview and LPR Cams to Document Midnight Vehicle Distributing Offensive Flyers on Lawns

We were out of town and I was checking my cams remotely one morning and noticed one of the Deputies that regularly patrol my subdivision had been at my front door. She has come to me a few times requesting video as she knows I have fairly good coverage of the streets at my corner. I noticed that...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Mike A.]

Any important cams should be running continuous in some form. At least using substreams. If not, at some point you'll wish that you had more of what preceded/came after some event, things that happen out of range of your primary interest/triggers, views from other cams that wouldn't be triggered, etc.

 

[Sir V Lance]

Any important cams should be running continuous in some form. At least using substreams. If not, at some point you'll wish that you had more of what preceded/came after some event, things that happen out of range of your primary interest/triggers, views from other cams that wouldn't be triggered, etc.

Makes sense. Thanks Mike A.

Additional questions if you don't mind...

-What does everybody think is the best substream resolution choice for a good compromise between usable imagery and not making your Blue Iris PC's tongue hang out?

-I will have two physical drives, a C:\ Windows & Blue Iris drive and a D:\ storage drive. Is it advisable to store NEW and CLIPS on the same drive? Should I partition my D:\ drive to D:\ and E:\ and do something like D:\DATA and E:\CLIPS? I might even set up sub-folders for each camera such as D:\DATA\CAM1, D:\DATA\CAM2, etc. Is this a sensible approach or are there preferred solutions that offer better performance?

 

[Mike A.]

Unless you have some specific reason otherwise, keep it simple - BI and database on C: (which should be your fastest drive), stored video and images on your storage drive. No need to split things up across partitions. Doesn't really buy you much of anything. If you had two physical storage drives then you might spread the video from various cams across different drives to have some redundancy. Or if you had a requirement to store video for longer time frames then you might move it somewhere else. Otherwise, generally no need to split or move things around on the same drive.

1024 is plenty as a substream if you want a little better quality. You can set it cam-by-cam so you can bump it up some on cams where you might want it or just leave at the default for others.

ETA: Duh... meant 1080.

 

[wittaj]

Yep, keep it simple. Creating partitions and subfolders gains you nothing.

Especially since it is known how fragile the DB is in BI, adding complexity to your layout increases the risk of DB corruption.

Substreams resolution and bitrate are up to you. Some go with 1080 or 720 and 1024 bitrate, while others do D1.

Comes down to your eyes and monitor and what you want to accomplish. I keep my field of views fairly tight, so a D1 resolution at 256 or 512 bitrate works for most of mine. My overview cams I run a higher substream.

 

[Sir V Lance]

Unless you have some specific reason otherwise, keep it simple - BI and database on C: (which should be your fastest drive), stored video and images on your storage drive.

Thanks Mike A.

I guess I may have misunderstood what the "database" is. I thought that term implied the actual video storage that would go on the secondary storage drive. I have no confusion that Windows and BI should go on the C:\ drive (boot drive). Are you saying that BI should maintain its "database" on the C:\ drive also, and this is different than the actual video and clips that get stored on the secondary storage drive (i.e. D:\ drive)?