Hardware Recommendation - 30 4MP Cameras

AnyNameWillDue

AnyNameWillDue

n3wb
Jul 25, 2018
11
0
somewhere
Would the configuration below work well for accommodating up to 30, 4MP cameras? I'm thinking 10-20 fps per camera.

If not, what would you change?

Processor & Memory:
  • 8th Gen Intel® Core™ i7-8700 Processor 3.2 GHz
  • 16GB DDR4 2666MHz RAM
Drives:
  • Boot and DB: 500gb m.2 samsung ssd
  • Recording Storage: 20tb raid 5 NAS OR 16tb raid 5 in same machine.
Operating System:
  • Microsoft® Windows 10 Professional (64 bit)
Graphics & Video:
  • 2GB NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 1030 Graphics
 
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I would be worried about over loading the writes to the hard drive in a raid format. I would configure 5 drives, purple 4tb each, 6 cameras per drive. Drives are in the case, do not use a NAS. NAS are ok for backup. Also what type POE switches are you using ? Network configuration is critical in a large system.
 
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The nice thing with these setups is that you can adjust the camera outputs to fix problems. By lowering the framerate, the resolution or by upping the compression you can lower the bit rate enough to work. You need to account for CPU usage, network usage and drive write speed. If any part doesn't work, drop down the load a little bit.
 
SouthernYankee said:
I would be worried about over loading the writes to the hard drive in a raid format. I would configure 5 drives, purple 4tb each, 6 cameras per drive. Drives are in the case, do not use a NAS. NAS are ok for backup. Also what type POE switches are you using ? Network configuration is critical in a large system.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Currently network setup with 24 port netgear switch plugged into an isolated interface on the firewall, the Blue Iris server and 15 cameras plugging into that switch soon.

As I get more cameras, we'll add two more switches like this: hardware firewall>small non-poe switch>2 x poe switches and windows 10 BI server.
 
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4MP * 30 cameras * 15 FPS = 1800 MP/s which is probably more than you can run on there without resorting to the "Limit decode" option as described in the wiki page on Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU usage. The "Limit decode" option can be turned on for specific cameras that you don't need great live viewing or motion detection for, and it cuts CPU usage for that camera down to almost nothing.

4MP * 30 cameras * 10 FPS = 1200 MP/s which should run without having to use "Limit decode" on any of the cameras.
 
bp2008 said:
4MP * 30 cameras * 15 FPS = 1800 MP/s which is probably more than you can run on there without resorting to the "Limit decode" option as described in the wiki page on Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU usage. The "Limit decode" option can be turned on for specific cameras that you don't need great live viewing or motion detection for, and it cuts CPU usage for that camera down to almost nothing.

4MP * 30 cameras * 10 FPS = 1200 MP/s which should run without having to use "Limit decode" on any of the cameras.
Click to expand...

Thanks. What is the 1200mp/s number compared to for evaluation of system capability? In other works, i am wondering how to calculate what my system could handle so I can decide how to setup the cams or how to limit the number of cams to achieve the fps i want? Appreciate it!
 
Hey there...

First things first....bp2008 is the man, and better than most at zeroing in on the sweet spot (frames per second/data rate). The calculation he's doing relates to just how much total data the CPU has to process at any given time and the one you are describing should work just fine. In my experience, finding that sweet spot is the biggest part of the battle. In my case, I've got 35 cameras of varying resolutions from 1080p PTZ's, to several 4K cameras. I have found that by "selectively" modifying each camera's parameters, I can achieve the results I'm looking for. For example, I prioritize frame and data rates for specific cameras that I want to very closely monitor. The others I will dial down to a set of "it works" parameters that give me enough visual information to make it useful, but save the heavy lifting for the cameras that matter most.

The only other thing I can add here is that from my own experience, the more cores/threads your processor has, the better the performance in high-camera-count situations. I am currently running an Intel i9-7980XE with 18 cores and 36 threads. Through much experimentation (and a lot of help from guys like bp2008), I have determined that core count really helps! This is of course based solely on my own experience, so your mileage may vary

Hope this helps!
 
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AnyNameWillDue said:
Thanks. What is the 1200mp/s number compared to for evaluation of system capability? In other works, i am wondering how to calculate what my system could handle so I can decide how to setup the cams or how to limit the number of cams to achieve the fps i want? Appreciate it!
Click to expand...

There's no simple calculation. @Tuckerdude had previously tested the limits of an i7-8700K (which is a bit faster than i7-8700) and I believe it was around 1500 MP/s where he hit the limit of what its hardware acceleration could handle.
 
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Something else to consider here, RAID5 is not a good option when dealing with large HDDs. The issue is that if/when a hard drive fails and a new one is installed, the odds of a successful rebuild are not good. RAID6 (has two parity drives so its odds of a successful rebuild are better) and RAID 10 are both options. Also, check out Unraid. I'm running it at home. Set it up with two parity drives. Although you do give up some performance because the drives are not working together to accomplish the task, it is more resilient because the data is not spread across the drives. Worst-case scenario if a drive fails and you are unable to rebuild the array, you only lose the data on that specific drive, not all of the data as you would with a traditional RAID array.

This site has more info: Why RAID5 should be avoided at all costs.
 
JonW said:
Something else to consider here, RAID5 is not a good option when dealing with large HDDs. The issue is that if/when a hard drive fails and a new one is installed, the odds of a successful rebuild are not good. RAID6 (has two parity drives so its odds of a successful rebuild are better) and RAID 10 are both options. Also, check out Unraid. I'm running it at home. Set it up with two parity drives. Although you do give up some performance because the drives are not working together to accomplish the task, it is more resilient because the data is not spread across the drives. Worst-case scenario if a drive fails and you are unable to rebuild the array, you only lose the data on that specific drive, not all of the data as you would with a traditional RAID array.

This site has more info: Why RAID5 should be avoided at all costs.
Click to expand...
Thanks! A synology disk station with raid 5 sounds good to me because their rebuild process is very easy. But I think I am going to skip the raid altogether.
 
I'm not saying to skip RAID altogether. I'm simply saying don't do RAID 5 with hard drives that large.
 
If you mean 100% disk usage as reported by task manager, just ignore that. That is not your disk's actual limit.
 
Makes sense but the reason I noticed it was because the system was nearly unresponsive when I logged into it this morning. On checking task manager, the disk usage was at 100%, most of it by bi, and when it would drop down to normal levels for a minute or two, then the system would be responsive again. I have my recording set to 1 day limit with 50gb, then transfer to another location on same disk as I don't have the raid up yet. I am wondering if that caused the issue so will modify that setting and see if any improvement.
 
Why copy files to a different location on the same disk?
It depends how smart BI is in the move/copy. Copy physically movers the entire file. Move just moves the directory vales an leaves the file unmoved.

Do not use a raid. Put different cameras on different disks.

How long do you need to keep the videos.
 
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