I have two different sites, 5 km apart, that I'm putting on the same network with Ubiquiti Powerbeams. One location has good internet, the other has none. Each location will have 4 cameras. Should I just have one
Blue Iris machine or should I have one at each location?
I am doing something like that except the sites are only about a mile apart and one has four cams and the other only 1 cam. (Ubiquiti Nano Locos)
It works for me because the cam views are all related - people who want to see one want to see them all.
I chinced out on the server (an AMD A6-3620) and five cams have it on it's knees; so if you do the single server, I would recommend something like an i7 machine (which I have at home and which has no trouble at all with seven cams plus a Tivo-on-Steroids home meda app running 24-7.
I would gravitate towards the single-server solution and then add a second server if it does not work out - mainly because my experience with servers at the end of poor internet connections has been that it is unduly frustrating and time-consuming to work on them.
OTOH, the lady who owns the house hosting the server (we pay her monthly Comcast bill) got the bright idea of replacing the Comcast cable modem/router/switch with a "Better" one at Comcast Support's recommendation.
Now, of course the whole thing is hosed big-time - and she's in Vermont getting knee replacement surgery so we can't get on premise to troubleshoot.
So, "You pays your money and you takes your choice".... still, I'd go for the single server first...