If it may help others just easing into the ip cam world on a budget, this is the path I went along, after some wrong turns.
There are a ton of cheap, old PCs out there. Some are great starting points for a Blue Iris build, but there are also many that do not really support what we need for ip cam duty.
There is a great WIKI on this subject, I'm just offering my take on it.
First, some of my wrong turns that I took, even though the smart folks here warned me...
I started with a "Tiny" PC. That's not just an adjective, it's an actual form factor. It is an amazing little machine about 8X8X2" and it's an entire PC.
It can do lots of PC stuff, but the tiny box and motherboard make trying to upgrade impossible. At every turn, I was limited...Limited CPU (not upgradable), limited power supply (not upgradable) , limited RAM, limited graphics, all limitations of the Tiny box. (but the SAME limitations could exist even in full size PCs; it's more about the motherboard than the box).
Any upgrade to storage meant using USB3 cables etc, and it just doesn't work. As Many here pointed out, external USB storage just doesn't work with any continuous-write scenario.
I gave it the 'old college try'.... but ultimately I had to move on. I needed to buy a REAL PC, real cheap, while heeding the lesson I learned while crashing the Tiny train.
The lesson is: regardless the cost of the box, there isn't one out there that comes tailored to our application; You are going to have to modify or at least add to whatever machine you buy.
But cheap can still work, just make certain that the physical machine can mount, connect, cool and SUPPORT the components and functions that we need.
It doesn't matter what brand, what CPU, what ram or drive is in the thing, as long as the board and the box allow and support these things to be upgraded to what you will need.
Things we need in the ip cam world:
1. A quick processor (or a slow one on a motherboard that allows a quicker one later) that's what I did
2. M.2 slot for mounting a 256+ SSD this frees up the HDD bay that we need for BIG storage (replaces C: drive, runs wicked fast, super important for Blue Iris database and alerts etc)
3. Space for at least 16G of DDR4 or faster Ram
4. Open PCI or PCIe slots for an additional NIC card or other expansion
5. TWO or more sATA HDD bays for your storage drive(s)
6. at least two USB3 ports
Nice to have: SD card reader, Express card slot, extra PCI slots, more Ram
The parts that you don't really need: gamer graphics cards with their added heat, processor load and power draw; bluetooth, wifi cards, Optical drive, WIN11 (ha)
The machine I chose was a used Lenovo 510-151-cb, a smaller box than the usual tower, but not a Tiny! Very available and cheap but critically, the machine is new enough that the motherboard supports intel's current cpus up to the 9th gen i9.
This machine came with an i3-8100. I recently replaced it with an i7-9700K (a five-minute process.)
Note that the i3 did the job well enough for a year; the new chip is way better
It possessed all the slots and connections mentioned to let me put what I needed in the box.
It started as an i3 8th gen/8G ram/1TB HDD/ WIN10 home machine
and is now: an i7-9th gen/500Gb SSD/32G ram/8TB and 10TB purple drives/dual NIC/WIN 10 Pro Blue Iris cruiser
If this particular machine has a weak point, its the low-power PSU, but since I'm not running a graphics card it hasn't been a problem even with the two big purples running all the time.
Just some notes on my cheap build. Sure, it all adds up but this build was very incremental so not big hit to the wallet.
There are a ton of cheap, old PCs out there. Some are great starting points for a Blue Iris build, but there are also many that do not really support what we need for ip cam duty.
There is a great WIKI on this subject, I'm just offering my take on it.
First, some of my wrong turns that I took, even though the smart folks here warned me...
I started with a "Tiny" PC. That's not just an adjective, it's an actual form factor. It is an amazing little machine about 8X8X2" and it's an entire PC.
It can do lots of PC stuff, but the tiny box and motherboard make trying to upgrade impossible. At every turn, I was limited...Limited CPU (not upgradable), limited power supply (not upgradable) , limited RAM, limited graphics, all limitations of the Tiny box. (but the SAME limitations could exist even in full size PCs; it's more about the motherboard than the box).
Any upgrade to storage meant using USB3 cables etc, and it just doesn't work. As Many here pointed out, external USB storage just doesn't work with any continuous-write scenario.
I gave it the 'old college try'.... but ultimately I had to move on. I needed to buy a REAL PC, real cheap, while heeding the lesson I learned while crashing the Tiny train.
The lesson is: regardless the cost of the box, there isn't one out there that comes tailored to our application; You are going to have to modify or at least add to whatever machine you buy.
But cheap can still work, just make certain that the physical machine can mount, connect, cool and SUPPORT the components and functions that we need.
It doesn't matter what brand, what CPU, what ram or drive is in the thing, as long as the board and the box allow and support these things to be upgraded to what you will need.
Things we need in the ip cam world:
1. A quick processor (or a slow one on a motherboard that allows a quicker one later) that's what I did
2. M.2 slot for mounting a 256+ SSD this frees up the HDD bay that we need for BIG storage (replaces C: drive, runs wicked fast, super important for Blue Iris database and alerts etc)
3. Space for at least 16G of DDR4 or faster Ram
4. Open PCI or PCIe slots for an additional NIC card or other expansion
5. TWO or more sATA HDD bays for your storage drive(s)
6. at least two USB3 ports
Nice to have: SD card reader, Express card slot, extra PCI slots, more Ram
The parts that you don't really need: gamer graphics cards with their added heat, processor load and power draw; bluetooth, wifi cards, Optical drive, WIN11 (ha)
The machine I chose was a used Lenovo 510-151-cb, a smaller box than the usual tower, but not a Tiny! Very available and cheap but critically, the machine is new enough that the motherboard supports intel's current cpus up to the 9th gen i9.
This machine came with an i3-8100. I recently replaced it with an i7-9700K (a five-minute process.)
Note that the i3 did the job well enough for a year; the new chip is way better
It possessed all the slots and connections mentioned to let me put what I needed in the box.
It started as an i3 8th gen/8G ram/1TB HDD/ WIN10 home machine
and is now: an i7-9th gen/500Gb SSD/32G ram/8TB and 10TB purple drives/dual NIC/WIN 10 Pro Blue Iris cruiser
If this particular machine has a weak point, its the low-power PSU, but since I'm not running a graphics card it hasn't been a problem even with the two big purples running all the time.
Just some notes on my cheap build. Sure, it all adds up but this build was very incremental so not big hit to the wallet.
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