Budget Server

[ChrisULM]

I'm just getting my feet wet and looking to purchase a budget server. Setup will consist of 4-5 cams mixed 720p and 1080p running with motion detection. At most there would be 2 cams recording at once.

Would an i5-3470 (looking at HP 6300, sub $100) be sufficient for this?

Thank in advance for the help. So much good information here.

 

[fenderman]

I'm just getting my feet wet and looking to purchase a budget server. Setup will consist of 4-5 cams mixed 720p and 1080p running with motion detection. At most there would be 2 cams recording at once.

Would an i5-3470 (looking at HP 6300, sub $100) be sufficient for this?

Thank in advance for the help. So much good information here.

Yes...If you get that for under 100 it's a great deal..

 

[ChrisULM]

Yes...If you get that for under 100 it's a great deal..

Thank you sir. Here's what I'm looking at: link

I assume I'll have to throw some more ram at it.

 

[ldasilva]

you might be able to get away with just the 4gb of ram add that money to your harddrive

 

[fenderman]

There is no OS or license key...

 

[ldasilva]

Says there's a win7 key
Install 7 then get free upgrade for win10

 

[fenderman]

Says there's a win7 key
Install 7 then get free upgrade for win10

Missed that..

 

[ChrisULM]

Thank you very much for the help guys. I think I'll throw a ssd drive in there and call it a day. If the 4gb of ram isn't enough, I'm pretty sure I've got some extra sticks laying around that I could add to it.

 

[bobfather]

4 GB will be enough, if all the machine does is run BI. With 4x as many cams my BI sits at ~2.5gb of RAM used, according to UI2 interface.

 

[ChrisULM]

4 GB will be enough, if all the machine does is run BI. With 4x as many cams my BI sits at ~2.5gb of RAM used, according to UI2 interface.

Is there any benefit to adding more ram to it if I already have some sticks or will that just add to the power consumption?

 

[bobfather]

The RAM will add a negligible amount of increased power consumption. However, bringing it from 4 to 8 GB will let you use the server for other purposes, if you wish.

Some ideas of extra use would be: file server, IRC relay, always-on torrent/usenet downloader, using Hyper-V in Windows to run additional operating systems with low overhead, etc. Most Blue Iris servers tend to be always-on, and have tons of hard drive space.

If your Blue Iris server needs to be bulletproof and 100% reliable, you should probably only use it for Blue Iris, however.

 

[fenderman]

The RAM will add a negligible amount of increased power consumption. However, bringing it from 4 to 8 GB will let you use the server for other purposes, if you wish.

Some ideas of extra use would be: file server, IRC relay, always-on torrent/usenet downloader, using Hyper-V in Windows to run additional operating systems with low overhead, etc. Most Blue Iris servers tend to be always-on, and have tons of hard drive space.

If your Blue Iris server needs to be bulletproof and 100% reliable, you should probably only use it for Blue Iris, however.

Any VMS should run clean with no other software...When adding more cams more memory is needed despite blue iris showing low memory consumption

 

[looney2ns]

I found this on that listing: For computer to work you will need to buy a OS

 

[ChrisULM]

I found this on that listing: For computer to work you will need to buy a OS

I've got an unused license if it doesn't ship with one. Was more concerned about the hardware but that would be a consideration for someone needing a Windows license.

 

[ChrisULM]

The computer delivered today. It did come with a windows 7 pro license on the case which I simply entered into my windows 10 pro installation. Everything is running like clockwork.

Thank you for the help everybody.

 

[TIM0089]

The computer delivered today. It did come with a windows 7 pro license on the case which I simply entered into my windows 10 pro installation. Everything is running like clockwork.

Thank you for the help everybody.

I am planning to buy the same server. Can you please let me know which SSD/hard drive did you add? And any problems so far?

 

[hmjgriffon]

720 is crap, I'd stick with 1080p only.

 

[ChrisULM]

I am planning to buy the same server. Can you please let me know which SSD/hard drive did you add? And any problems so far?

I picked up the 120GB version of this drive and added another 2TB drive for archiving recordings. Not the highest end SSD drive by any means, but it is running like a champ.
The server itself is running even better than I thought it would. Even with 4 cameras recording motion at the same time, the CPU barely cranks up over 10%. It's running so well with Blue Iris, that I added another 4GB of ram and installed Plex on there as well to dual purpose it as a media server.

I really like the small form factor case. Everything is so neatly packed and easy to work with. Those things are a heck of a deal at $100 shipped.

 

[TIM0089]

Thank you very much. I guess you would need to buy the desktop bundle for SATA connectors and such? Also what kind of RAM will work with it? Any links? (Sorry, a newbie here).

 

[ChrisULM]

Thank you very much. I guess you would need to buy the desktop bundle for SATA connectors and such? Also what kind of RAM will work with it? Any links? (Sorry, a newbie here).

Mine came with enough SATA cables to connect one hard drive and the dvd drive, so I used an extra cable I had laying around to connect the 2nd hard drive. Alternatively, you could disconnect the cable from the dvd drive and use it for another hard drive if you'd like.

It has 4 ram slots and takes DDR3 ram. It came with 4GB of ram installed (2 x 2GB) which is plenty if all you're doing is running Blue Iris. I happened to have an extra 4GB of ram laying around, so I decided to put it in there. I probably would have rolled with the 4GB it came with otherwise.