Dahua NVR with more cameras than POE ports, how does it work?

[tigerwillow1]

I run a Dahua NVR with no POE ports, so don't have any experience how they work, and would like to learn. I think I understand how it works when all of the NVR channels have built-in POE ports, as with a 5216-16P-4ks2: Plug each camera into a POE port one at a time. NVR adds it in plug-and-play fashion, assigns it an IP address, password, etc. The cameras are on their own subnet and presumably isolated from a user's LAN and the outside Internet. Now change the NVR to a 5216-8P-4ks2, with only 8 POE ports. I'm assuming the cameras plugged into the POE ports are handled the same as described above. What about the other 8 cameras? Is there any plug-and-play installation? Are they on the user's LAN, or on the camera subnet? It seems to me the NVR should have another RJ45 port meant to hook to an external POE switch, but it doesn't, I don't see any obvious way the NVR's extra channels are meant to be used, and there's nothing I can find in the NVR manual about it.

 

[wittaj]

The NVR can only handle the number of cameras it is designed for so you cannot add more than 16 cameras to a 16 channel NVR, whether it has POE ports or not.

In the case of adding cameras that are not connected to the POE of the NVR, they all have to run to a POE Switch and then a cable from the POE switch to the WAN/LAN port of the NVR. The cameras will have to be manually added one at a time.

 

[TonyR]

+1^^^.
Assign unique, static IP's to the cams and to the NVR's LAN, all in the same subnet; use IP's that are outside of your router's DHCP pool.

 

[bigredfish]

Agree with both above

NVR—>PoE switch
Cameras—>PoE switch
PoE switch —> LAN
NVR and cameras are now on your LAN network

In the registration tab of the NVR the external cameras should be found and can be added manually on this page. Best to have all cameras use same login/pass as NVR

 

[tigerwillow1]

I see mass agreement here, which I'd summarize as for the cameras not hooked to POE ports, it's the same as if the NVR had no POE ports. It does make me wonder what sense it makes to have an NVR with less POE ports than the NVR's camera capacity? Seems like double the work to have some cameras hooked up one way with plug and play setup, and some a different way with manual setup.

 

[wittaj]

There are situations where running every cable back to the NVR is problematic.

 

[tigerwillow1]

There are situations where running every cable back to the NVR is problematic.

I agree, and definitely in opinion territory, I think in that case it's dumb to have any POE ports at all on the NVR, and instead use another external switch so all the cameras can all be set up the same way. Dahua must disagree, since that have several POE recorders with less POE ports than the channel capacity.

The reason I'm looking at this is the combination of designing a new system combined with the multiple reports of how obnoxiously loud the power supply fans are in the Dahua NVRs with POE ports. My no-POE 5216 uses a fanless external power brick and its other cooling fan, while still too loud IMO, isn't punishingly loud. For other options there's an 8-channel 4100-series NVR with POE ports that uses an external power brick, and of course Blue Iris. I would think the technology exists to get rid of the dang fan noise so it wouldn't have to be as important as things like image quality when making decisions. I'm so far finding it a no-win situation to set up a system for an absolutely non-techie user who needs 16 channels:

1. Easiest to set up is 16 channel NVR with POE ports. Plug-and-play (supposedly), cameras isolated from main LAN, but they'll hate me for the loud NVR.
2. No POE 16 channel NVR with fanless switches. User has to deal with IP assignment issues (will hate me for this, too), and cameras are exposed to the main LAN.
3. Blue Iris. Fan noise can be managed, cameras can be isolated from main LAN, but user still has to deal with IP addresses.

 

[wittaj]

People here have changed out the fan in the NVR.