Cheap Compact Standalone Computer for Blue Iris / File Sharing

[Jason Garrett]

I'm currently running (testing really) Blue Iris on my main system (i7-6700k, etc) and of course everything is running fine, but I don't want this system running 24/7.

In a post from 2012 on this forum I saw someone recommending the HP 8300 computer. There is a local computer shop with several of them for $250 with the i5-3470, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD with fully licensed Windows 7 Pro loaded. I already have an external USB 3.0 drive bay that I can use to house my 4TB media drive. It would fit perfectly in a certain spot I have on my desk, so I'm interested in it for sure. Can I do better for the price? I'm looking at systems like this mainly for 24/7 reliability, small size, and somewhat low power draw.

My primary uses are going to be Blue Iris with motion activated recording, very rarely recording continuously, file serving through Plex Media Server for my house, and other than that, just basic uses. The cameras are all modern POE IP cameras, a couple from Monoprice, one from Hikvision, and one from QCam. All of them are 3mp, and during motion activation I would like to record at max resolution, quality, and FPS settings. Occasionally I would be monitoring 4 cameras in a split screen format, at maybe 10fps or so.

I would appreciate any advice or other suggestions.

Thanks!

 

[fenderman]

I'm currently running (testing really) Blue Iris on my main system (i7-6700k, etc) and of course everything is running fine, but I don't want this system running 24/7.

In a post from 2012 on this forum I saw someone recommending the HP 8300 computer. There is a local computer shop with several of them for $250 with the i5-3470, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB HDD with fully licensed Windows 7 Pro loaded. I already have an external USB 3.0 drive bay that I can use to house my 4TB media drive. It would fit perfectly in a certain spot I have on my desk, so I'm interested in it for sure. Can I do better for the price? I'm looking at systems like this mainly for 24/7 reliability, small size, and somewhat low power draw.

My primary uses are going to be Blue Iris with motion activated recording, very rarely recording continuously, file serving through Plex Media Server for my house, and other than that, just basic uses. The cameras are all modern POE IP cameras, a couple from Monoprice, one from Hikvision, and one from QCam. All of them are 3mp, and during motion activation I would like to record at max resolution, quality, and FPS settings. Occasionally I would be monitoring 4 cameras in a split screen format, at maybe 10fps or so.

I would appreciate any advice or other suggestions.

Thanks!

welcome to the forum. Those posts are old. Look at the elitedesk 800 g1 with haswell i5-4590 that are available with full warranties on ebay for 300. Or dell optiplex 7020/9020 i5 haswells.