Did I waste my money on Cisco POE Switch? Seeking NVR sollution

[austintech]

Recently remodeled house and ran cat 6 throughout house (inside /outside). Wify let me setup an IT closet so have ups, switch, sonos, hue, hdmi matiix with simple control software in small rack. I setup a cisco 28 Gbit poe switch thinking i would connect to ~8 POE IP Cams outside, as well as act as my switch for rest of house. Home network, automation up and running, just now getting around to deciding what cameras to purchase, software to use and how to store info. I have 2009 iMac as only desktop computer with limited storage so that wont work. I've recently become interested in NAS for backup and plex server. Looking for affordable (i love used/craigslit) solutions that will fit in my rack (1U/2U/micro desktop). I've seen Dahua 4216 highly recommended but my sense is i already have POE switch, is there a way i can use my existing switch. I thought of buying old dell server (2x intel 3.0, 32GBRam,1TB HD for $249) to act as nas and NVR but the only software i've seen good reviews is blue iris which use Microsoft home os. Looked at QNAP NAS too but their cam software gets bad reviews. Been researching for two weeks but have made 0 progress, just more questions. Any advise is truly appreciated. What do you recommended??

 

[tigerwillow1]

If I can piggyback another question... I noticed on aliexpress the 5216 is $22 more than the 4216. If there any reason to not go with the 5216? The Aliexpress specs say the video standard is PAL. Is this anything to be concerned about? Do the US models use NTSC? I too have a 24 port Cisco POE switch I'm planning on using.

 

[nayr]

just dont buy a NVR w/PoE since you already have it in the switch..

the 5216 has quad core and the 4216 has a dual core IIRC, so the 5216 would be better.. check spec sheet.

I have a PAL 4216-4k w/out PoE and it works fine.

 

[austintech]

If i buy NVR, does that mean i no longer need blue iris? any recommendations on a system that can used many brands of camera including nest. Rather have open system then something that locks me into a single brand.

 

[fenderman]

If i buy NVR, does that mean i no longer need blue iris? any recommendations on a system that can used many brands of camera including nest. Rather have open system then something that locks me into a single brand.

Never buy those old dells, they are power hogs under-powered and a complete rippoff...they dont work well with blue iris. Search the forum for optiplex and elitedesk, you can buy an i5-haswell/skylake system for 300 that is much more powerful (and support intel hd hardware acceleration) and uses about 1/10th the power as those old dells.
BI is much more flexible than any NVR on the market.

 

[austintech]

Awesome Thanks. See some i5s on craigslist in Small form factor. Most of these systems come with 250 to 500GB HDD. Am i ok to use small SSD or SATA drives then have separate NAS for most storage space or do i need to have local storage on the desktop for blue iris software?

 

[nayr]

you should use local space, otherwise you now required to have 2 PC's operational for our camera system to be recording.. terrible for battery backups and huge point of failure.

most people also store important data on a NAS, survelence video is not important.. so if you have a disk fail in your NVR, remove the poor thing and run at partial capacity until the replacement arrives.. where as if your NAS looses a disk, you make careful backups, and then its down until you get a replacement and go through a full rebuild (which can take many days or weeks)

 

[fenderman]

Awesome Thanks. See some i5s on craigslist in Small form factor. Most of these systems come with 250 to 500GB HDD. Am i ok to use small SSD or SATA drives then have separate NAS for most storage space or do i need to have local storage on the desktop for blue iris software?

i5 is meaningless...for example first gen i5 is garbage for BI...look for haswell or skylake. Local storage is always ideal...