Hardware spec for a BI machine.

[paul080803]

Hi All,

New member and straight in with a question.

I am starting to buy the necessary parts for a BI machine, cameras and a nas for storage and likely a Plex Media Server.

First time doing anything like this, so steep learning curve! Go easy on me please.

As a background. Detached house with detached garage and detached garden office. Cat 6 connecting office and house. Garage no cabling yet. 1/2 acre plot to cover with cameras and inside of garage.

Looking at about 12-14 cameras.

Research has led me to:

A dedicated machine to run BI in the office
Attached NAS device for storage
Secondary NAS device in the house for the plex server (NAS servers will sync to each other for back up and disaster recovery - separate locations).
2mp cameras - BI configured as per the really handy set up guide on here to minimise cpu usage.

First question - will this machine be OK for up to 14 cameras? And would a ssd be a worthwhile upgrade from the hdd or a waste of money.

- Intel i5-6500, 16GB RAM, 500GB HDD, Windows 10

Second question - camera recommendations that blend performance with cost? Mainly need motion detection, but some will run 24/7.

Thanks in advance!

 

[sebastiantombs]

Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris

Buy refurbished. Don't build or buy new. The most cost-effective Blue Iris computers are refurbished business-class systems such as "HP EliteDesk" and "Dell OptiPlex". You can usually get a good deal by searching [URL='http://www.ebay.com/']Ebay[/URL] for specific CPU model numbers, and...

ipcamtalk.com

IMHO, an i5-6500 is a little under powered. 6th or 7th generation is what to look for.

 

[Holbs]

NAS = most people who have used a NAS have problems. Better to have a local surveillance hard drive (western digital purple...4-12TB) built in. When the local HD if near full, that is when you can export out to NAS.
camera = Dahua 5442 series. It does it all.

 

[TVille]

As @sebastiantombs says:

The three basic rules of video surveillance cameras-​

​

Rule #1 - Cameras multiply like rabbits.​

Rule #2 - Cameras are more addictive than drugs.​

Rule #3 - You never have enough cameras.​

No drug addict ever thought they were going to get addicted either....

I'm running an i7-6700 with 16 GB of ram, and about 14 cameras. Running DeepStack (AI motion detection) and ALPR (license plate reader) it is not exactly a powerhouse. I agree, you should look at something more powerful.

As far as selecting cameras goes, the answer, which you won't like, is "it depends". I have 14 cameras total, and if I bought them all tomorrow, I would probably have 6 different ones, for different applications. A couple of high power zooms, a big PTZ with auto tracking, and the rest various lens of the main cameras. You really need to layout the locations and expectations to determine what cameras you need. You will likely need closer to 20 to provide proper coverage.

Why a NAS? You typically record for a few days, maybe, maybe a month. If you want redundancy, consider a RAID array in the BI machine. My cameras produce about 7 TB of data every week or so, recording 24/7. That is a lot of data to be pushing on a network, and a NAS will not normally be reliable to write to for video work. If it has a single network error, you have issues. If you want a NAS, have a local, dedicated, drive to write to, then move it to the NAS. The advantage of a NAS is that it is networked, and multiple computers can get to it. That is not an advantage here.

 

[TonyR]

A SSD is definitely worth it, IMO.
Put Windows, Blue Iris and Blue Iris' "db" folder on the SSD, BI's video clips to a surveillance-rated HDD such as WD Purple,

 

[TVille]

A SSD is definitely worth it, IMO.
Put Windows, Blue Iris and Blue Iris' "db" folder on the SSD, BI's video clips to a surveillance-rated HDD such as WD Purple,

Yes!

When I got my "new" BI machine, it came with a 1TB drive. It was slooowwww. I replaced it with a 400 GB SSD. Amazing difference. I wouldn't consider anything else now, for the OS and programs. Data files on a spinning platter is fine.

 

[paul080803]

Thanks for all the replies!

So a ssd in the BI machine is a must.
A more powerful cpu is needed.
Cameras will be different for each location.

Reason for a NAS is driven by the desire for disaster failure for the one in the house. It felt like an opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone. I want a separate location to back up the house (failure/fire/theft) and needing storage for the BI machine it seemed to be the most logical solution. Sounds like I need to think about local storage for the BI machine, and then overnight back ups.

 

[TVille]

Thanks for all the replies!

So a ssd in the BI machine is a must.
A more powerful cpu is needed.
Cameras will be different for each location.

Reason for a NAS is driven by the desire for disaster failure for the one in the house. It felt like an opportunity to kill 2 birds with one stone. I want a separate location to back up the house (failure/fire/theft) and needing storage for the BI machine it seemed to be the most logical solution. Sounds like I need to think about local storage for the BI machine, and then overnight back ups.

BI will automatically move files. It has a staged/cascading storage system built in. But, it is not a backup system, as it moves file due to age or drive capacity.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Backing up overnight may not work either. We're talking about, potentially, terabytes of data being generated daily, even using sub streams in BI. That's especially true if you record both the main and sub streams. Without a gig connection between the two locations, and a 10GB would be better, you're going to run out of time to back them up. This is based on 24/7 recording and not recording only on motion detection. Recording on motion detection only will definitely reduce the volume of data but will insure you miss something critical at the wrong time.

 

[iwanttosee]

Will you be wanting to use DeepStack AI feature? If so, I'd recommend a nvidia video card with cuda cores.

 

[Flintstone61]

Get an SSD. get 2 WD Purple drives, split the cams across 2 drives, and you'll have 3 months of video. no need to write data all over Hell and gone redundantly, esp if it useless video. get an i7 processor, 6700 or newer. if you find an i5 machine,,,,,go with at least 8500 series ( six core).
16 Gb ram is ok.
I have 2.5 months of viewable footage on 13TB of storage, with 18 cameras, and over 500 motion events a day. with i5 8500. HP Elitedesk SFF, ( supports 1 nvme SDD drive on board, and 2-3.5" full hdd bays. 24Gb ram. I do not use Deepstack. just using the Intel graphics. If I felt the need to screw with the system, i have a 1060 GTX 6GB laying in a drawer, I'm sure I'd need ass loads of time to configure Deepstack in some meaningful way.
My BI machine is on site at a Condo.
my home BI machine is my desktop home computer. It's running 9 cams on a i5-4590 with 32 GB ram, an SSD, a WD 8 TB Purp,

 

[Flintstone61]

 

[iwanttosee]

I have a Lenovo M93p with 4th gen i5 4570 with 16GB ram, 120SSD, 1TB HD, P620 GPU running deepstack, two instances of linux virtual machines, as well as BI with 9 cameras.

I think OP orignal setup would be fine for 14 cameras, if even with deepstack running, probably a little slow to detect but it will work fine.

 

[sebastiantombs]

That gets a little sketchy. The OP is just starting out and should plan ahead for when the cameras go into rabbit mode and start multiplying exponentially.

 

[paul080803]

Get an SSD. get 2 WD Purple drives, split the cams across 2 drives, and you'll have 3 months of video. no need to write data all over Hell and gone redundantly, esp if it useless video. get an i7 processor, 6700 or newer. if you find an i5 machine,,,,,go with at least 8500 series ( six core).
16 Gb ram is ok.
I have 2.5 months of viewable footage on 13TB of storage, with 18 cameras, and over 500 motion events a day. with i5 8500. HP Elitedesk SFF, ( supports 1 nvme SDD drive on board, and 2-3.5" full hdd bays. 24Gb ram. I do not use Deepstack. just using the Intel graphics. If I felt the need to screw with the system, i have a 1060 GTX 6GB laying in a drawer, I'm sure I'd need ass loads of time to configure Deepstack in some meaningful way.
My BI machine is on site at a Condo.
my home BI machine is my desktop home computer. It's running 9 cams on a i5-4590 with 32 GB ram, an SSD, a WD 8 TB Purp,

Thanks, really helpful.

Found a 800 G2 SFF machine with I7-6700, 16gb ram and 240gb ssd. Will then get a pair of purple drives as suggested and not connect it up to a NAS.

Hopefully that future proofs things for when the cameras go rabbit mode

 

[Flintstone61]

Anybody know if the G2 has 2 - 3.5" HDD bays? I can only speak to the g4 800 sff.

 

[Flintstone61]

 

[Flintstone61]

Actually now that I think about my GTX 1060, it requires a full height Tower, PCIe slot, and PC with a larger Power supply. Which is where it resided previously in my Optiplex 9020 i5-4590, with a Dell Precision tower power supply of 365 watts. Precisions of the same era could be equipped with Quadro graphics and Xeon chips, maybe not mixed, but anyway a more power hungry build.

 

[Flintstone61]

So it appears as though the HP G2 800 SFF could be had with 3 SATA ports or 5 SATA Ports? could that be right? I wonder if thats an MT board ( MT = Mini Tower)

 

[tmushy]

Can you all recommend which operating system to run blue iris on?
Im remaking a blue iris system on my hypervisor server (running esxi).
Wondering if I should go windows 10 or 11