Blue Iris issues on Virtual Machine

huntjules

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I am running Blue Iris on a VirtualBox VM on an iMac. I am wondering about the best configuration for disk storage. I am recording in bvr format and storing to the local "C:" drive which is, of course, part of the virtual disk image file.

Should I be using a network drive which maps to the host iMac file system for video storage? Would that be more efficient and a better configuration? (Since that involves windows-to-Mac SMB networking, I thought, at least initially, to avoid that complexity, but now want to consider all options to fine-tune the configuration.)

I have configured the Blue Iris storage folders ("New", "Alerts", "Stored", and "log") to be subfolders on my OneDrive folder so they are also synchronized to the cloud where I have a 1 TB OneDrive account. Is that a good or bad strategy for a simple backup/mirroring of the video streams?

Also, what is the best backup strategy? I think if i don't change Blue Iris configuration, then I only need an occasional backup of the virtual machine itself by shutting down the virtual machine, running my backup via Carbon Copy Cloner, then re-starting the virtual machine. (macOS Sierra new APFS file system will have snap-shot technology, but I don't expect the new file system to be ready for at least another year or two.)

Sorry for all the questions, but new to Blue Iris and really impressed by the program and its' features.

(ICYMI, long-time PC user/technology person who has migrated away from the PC to Macs so would really like to avoid having a physical PC again just for Blue Iris.)
Hello, I'm using BlueIris on a KVM Windows 10 VM and works fine. (I'm running on a UnRaid NAS with I7 3770/16Gb Ram & SSD... horsepower also as running 2 plex servers also) but B.I works fine on a VM.
 
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I've recently put together a popular server/workstation build, dual Xeon E5-2670's, 64GB RAM, 250GB SSD, etc running Windows Server 2012 R2. I'm a CS student and I'll be using this machine for Blue Iris but also for a lot of learning and experimenting. Question is, should I run Blue Iris in a VM? Or should I run it directly from the server machine? If I run it in a VM, which operating system should I use? Being a CS student I have access to pretty much all of the Microsoft OS's for free. I'm still very new to the server thing, I just got my system up and running and am now diving into the books. How can I best utilize my machine for Blue Iris. The system is 2x 3MP cams and 2x 4MP cams, I run them at 10fps but maximum resolution, direct to disk. Thanks!
 

bp2008

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Well those Xeons don't support Quick Sync Video so you don't get hardware accelerated h264 decoding either way (no VM host can pass through Quick Sync Video support, which usually makes VMs bad for Blue Iris). Therefore you could run BI in a VM with no negative consequences besides the usual overhead of running things in VMs. With only 4 cameras at 10 FPS it won't be a big load by any means.
 
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