Dahua NVR5216-4KS2 / NVR5216-16P-4KS2

your wasting money buying anything smaller than 4TB right now.. take Price$/Total TB=Price per TB, last time I checked 4TB is best deal, followed by 6TB

You only have room for 2 disks, best to buy the largest you can afford.. too much space is not a bad thing, and as you add cameras your rentention will go down.. if you find your not getting enough retention some time in the future as you add cameras you have a second empty bay ready and waiting to be used.
 
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I am looking at this same NVR for my home however I am having a hard time deciding if I need one with POE ports built in or one without them (I understand if I get one with them built in that I would need to get a POE Switch). I am not concerned about fan noise as the location of this will be in a cooled basement.

I am a newb when it comes to this stuff... but I plan on buying a few of the 2mp starlight turrets that everyone raves about and possibly 1 ptz in the future.

It also sounds like I need to buy a hard drive separetly for the NVR right? 1 or 2 TB WD Purple would work right?


Correct you need to get a harddrve for it and I agree with nayr, don't go with anything less than 4TB.

Actually I discovered on mine with no PoE still have a fan in it. When I opened mine, it look like it used for cooling the processor.

If you get a PoE
Need to run cables from each cameras to the location where the NVR is at.

Will have difficult time accessing the camera configuration directly from your PC but there are way around it.

Make sure that NVR is in a cool place.

Non-PoE
Need to get a PoE switch but can be mounted closer to all camera like attic for short cable runs and one long cable run to a NVR.

Easier to access each cameras for configuration but your cameras will be exposed on the net so you need to know how to secure it.

I am sure other can chime in the pro and con of PoE vs non-PoE
 
Thank you for the help. Honestly my brain is mush right now having researched ideas, builds, equipment, etc.

My plan is to run at least 8 ip cams, recording 24/7, with remote viewing on iPhone.

I would say I am 50/50 on buying the NVR5216-4KS2 with or without the Poe ports. Honestly don't know which way to go... I do not own a Poe switch so I guess my decision would be easier if I did already have one.

My understanding was that it would be easier to access and config your cameras if they were directly Poe into the nvr. That's not the case?

If the non Poe route was the way I went is it fairly simple to secure these cameras on my network? I am hoping some of you could help me with that aspect if I went that way?

I am also not ruling out a dedicated pc running blue iris. I have read many of you speak highly of this. What does it cost to own/run blue iris? Any helpful specs on which pc I should look at? How much would I need to spend?

Again I appreciate all of your help and I admit I am a noob when it comes to the nvr/pc side of things.
 
Thank you for the help. Honestly my brain is mush right now having researched ideas, builds, equipment, etc.

My plan is to run at least 8 ip cams, recording 24/7, with remote viewing on iPhone.

I would say I am 50/50 on buying the NVR5216-4KS2 with or without the Poe ports. Honestly don't know which way to go... I do not own a Poe switch so I guess my decision would be easier if I did already have one.

My understanding was that it would be easier to access and config your cameras if they were directly Poe into the nvr. That's not the case?

If the non Poe route was the way I went is it fairly simple to secure these cameras on my network? I am hoping some of you could help me with that aspect if I went that way?

I am also not ruling out a dedicated pc running blue iris. I have read many of you speak highly of this. What does it cost to own/run blue iris? Any helpful specs on which pc I should look at? How much would I need to spend?

Again I appreciate all of your help and I admit I am a noob when it comes to the nvr/pc side of things.

If the camera is same brand as the NVR, one example would be a Dahua camera connected to a Dahua NVR then yes you can configure many of the camera settings using a GUI directly from the NVR. Unless some certain features such as setting up or formatting onboard SD card then you would probably need to access the GUI directly from the camera to use it which mean the camera need to be on the same network as your laptop is on which is the home network.

If all the cameras are connected via the PoE ports on NVR, it create its' own separate network but the NVR will be connected to your home network to access internet and a PC/laptop on your home network would not be able to access those cameras that is on a different network unless NVR have a pass-through feature. I do not know if this model have this feature since I only have non-PoE model and maybe someone with a PoE model can tell you.

A PoE NVR without a pass-through feature will require you disconnect your camera from NVR network then using a PoE injector connect it to your home network that your PC/laptop is on. Once you finish configuring it then you can put it back on the NVR PoE network without the PoE injector.

There an awesome guide on securing cameras written by nayr over at

Network Security Primer

I strongly suggest you read this guide.

As for Blue Iris, I have no experience with it other than running a demo for a short time however I do know running "HD" camera (2MP, 3MP, 4MP etc) require lots of processing power so I wouldn't recommend anything less than a i7 processor. Also set up to be a dedicated PC only to run Blue Iris and nothing else is used or other software running on that same PC. You will need a PoE switch to power your cameras if you plan to go with Blue Iris route.

I would recommend asking any Blue Iris question in the Blue Iris forum on here.

Blue Iris
 
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Tonight I added the 4TB harddrive in the NVR. Some photos below.
 

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This may be obvious to some, but here goes. If I purchase the 5216 with 16 on-board POE ports, then decide later to go with an external POE+ switch, will it work the same as the NVR without the built-in switch? It seems very few AliExpress stores list the non-POE unit right now, and I'm getting anxious. I am also looking at the 5416-4ks2 unit with 2 NIC's in it and 2 HDMI ports.
 
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This may be obvious to some, but here goes. If I purchase the 5216 with 16 on-board POE ports, then decide later to go with an external POE+ switch, will it work the same as the NVR without the built-in switch? It seems very few AliExpress stores list the non-POE unit right now, and I'm getting anxious. I am also looking at the 5416-4ksd unit with 2 NIC's in it and 2 HDMI ports.

Yes it should work the same as NVR with no PoE.
 
Hey guys,
I'm also tinker with the idea of buying a NVR5232-16P-4KS2. Has anyone experience with the POE model? Especially with IVS and if it is possible to access the cams at the POE ports with virtual hosts? Is there maybe also a possibility to totally disable the DHCP on the NVR and don't hide 'em behind? If I have a 32 channel NVR and only hide the half of my cams behind the NVRs POE ports, it doesn't make sense to me. I would prefer to have the same subnet on the POE ports like on the LAN port of the NVR.
On the other Hand i could alo imagine to have a separate PC running Smart PSS and PC-NVR. For now i only tried it with three cams, not having much load for recording... Whats about IVS in Smart PSS? Seems it doesn't record even if it is set in schedule? Maybe any hints or suggestions? Thanks!
 
I have the NVR5216-4KS2 and recommend going with this model compared to the integrated 16P POE model. Pick up a sub $100 8 port POE switch and you'll have a great setup.
 
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I have the NVR5216-4KS2 and recommend going with this model compared to the integrated 16P POE model. Pick up a sub $100 8 port POE switch and you'll have a great setup.

Why would you prefer the one without POE? The one with 16 Poe ports doesn't cost much more, even if i don't use them I wouldn't get an 8 port poe switch for the money I would save if I get one without poe. Are there any other doubts of getting one with poe?
What's about the PC-NVR from Smart PSS? Is it reliable? If I get a poe switch there would also be the possibility of using a soft NVR…


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internal PoE sucks and I suggest avoiding it at all costs; unless you just want a simple plug-n-play setup for gramps its less flexible and harder to work with.
 
Regarding the NVR5216, I just got it and put in the (2) 8TB drives I got expecting to be able to mirror the drives.
I'm very surprised that you can't do hardware RAID on these Dahua NVR's??
 
So, my dumb question...

I'm deciding between NVR5216-4KS2 and BI setup, but will be going with an external POE switch (possiblyBV-Tech SW881) either way.
I've read the network tutorial, but not sure if I need a managed switch (VLAN) or not. My home network does have a VPN server running in a FreeNAS server jail.

Initially when I was leaning toward BI, I had expected I would set it up as a dual-home system with it interfacing to the switch and the rest of my network. I'm not a network expert, but thought I could configure it to provide limited access to the BI software, but block direct access to the cameras, thus providing some protection. With this setup, I see how I could access the BI server both internally and remotely (via VPN).

So, I kinda' expected to see two interfaces on the NVR, allowing it to be setup similarly to above, but it appears to only have one interface which would need to connect to the switch. I'd have to connect another port on the switch to the rest of my network to get access. Not only would I be reduced to a 15 camera setup, but this would provide access to the cameras to the rest of the network, right? UNLESS, I got a managed switch?? I guess I could connect the POE, NVR and internal network together through another switch, but that sounds overly complex and adds expense.

I guess this is a benefit of the built-in POE version of NVR, but I really didn't want to go that route since I want to separate the units with the switch in my wiring closet and NVR in another area.

Do I have this correct? Is the only good way to go with an external switch and the NVR is to use a managed switch?

Thanks.
 
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if you want to isolate your cameras with external PoE you need a VLAN Capable Switch and Router, or a 2nd router and some static routes defined.

isolating the cameras from the rest of your LAN dont nessicarly provide security, if they are isolated from the internet the threat they pose on your network is dramatically reduced and the attack surface is minimal..

The main reason for isolating your cameras from your LAN is becuase you dont trust your LAN; not the other way arround.. ie, you have employees that should not be able to access the recorder or cameras.
 
All forms of RAID are absolutely worthless for IP Video Surveillance anyhow..

If you require redundancy and high availability; you can setup a hotspare NVR and cluster them, or just redundantly record to more than one recorder.. works so much better.
 
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Hi,

I'd like to order a NVR5216-4KS2 and build a system around it - can anyone recommend where to buy it? I'm a little hesitant about English/warranty issues with Ali Express? So ideally a US based outfit that stands behind the product, but I'll do Ali if strongly recommended.

I have 2x Ubiquiti toughswitch POE, which I was planning to use to run the cameras.

(I was going to try Acti with software VR, but haven't been too happy with the one camera I have messing around with it, and know someone who's been very pleased with Dahua)
 
Hi,

I'd like to order a NVR5216-4KS2 and build a system around it - can anyone recommend where to buy it? I'm a little hesitant about English/warranty issues with Ali Express? So ideally a US based outfit that stands behind the product, but I'll do Ali if strongly recommended.

I have 2x Ubiquiti toughswitch POE, which I was planning to use to run the cameras.

(I was going to try Acti with software VR, but haven't been too happy with the one camera I have messing around with it, and know someone who's been very pleased with Dahua)

I got mine from EMPIRETECANDY and I can vouch for him. Send him a message here and he will set you up with one.
 
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internal PoE sucks and I suggest avoiding it at all costs; unless you just want a simple plug-n-play setup for gramps its less flexible and harder to work with.
Could you explain why it sucks in your mind? More flexible is ok if you want to have the NVR on another location than the POE. It's about 80$ more for 16 POE ports. If i get me a good 16 port managed POE switch in my country i'll have to pay at least same price as for the NVR without POE. If i Change my mind later than i could only use the LAN port, right? So i think it's not the worst Situation to have one with PoE. Just wanted to know if the one with PoE supports virtual hosts or other possibilities to directly access the cams at the PoE ports.
And could you explain gramps to a non native Speaker? ;)