Hi all, Koen here from the Netherlands

[Koensk]

Hi all,
My name is Koen.
A tip via some other webpage got me here.
Good to see there is so much information and experience here. Just what I was looking for.
I live in the Netherlands and own a campsite. Both home and business I run a Synology DS with a few camera's.
Works pretty well but as my parents also want 2 cams I'm thinking to buy something new for my business and move the old DS to my parents home to service the 2 cams.

I barely use the DS at my business as everything is transferred to One Drive. So I mainly use the DS for surveillance station.

So what to buy?
A dedicated server to run Xprotect or Blue Iris. Or a Synology NVR to use as a dedicated Surveillance system.

That's my main question for now.
I think I will also be happy to search the forum about experience with camera's best buys etc.

 

[sebastiantombs]

It's hard to tell someone else what is "right" for them when it comes to an NVR versus a VMS like Blue Iris. I've used Blue Iris for years and am still tweaking and learning simply because it is so feature rich. An NVR is probably faster to set up, but is pretty limited in capability when compared to Blue Iris or other VMS software. The other thing about an NVR is that for best performance you need to stay with cameras from the same manufacturer. Here's some links for camera reviews. Keep in mind that you get what you pay for, inexpensive cameras equate to poor performance especially at night which is when we usually need the to perform well.

The 5442 series of cameras by Dahua is the current "king of the hill". They are 4MP and capable of color with some ambient light at night. The 2231 series is a less expensive alternative in 2MP and does not have audio capabilities, no built in microphone, but is easier on the budget. The 3241T-ZAS has similar spcs as the 2231 and has audio. There are also cameras available from the IPCT Store right here on the forum and from Nelly's Security who has a thread in the vendors section.

5442 Reviews

Review - Loryata (Dahua OEM) IPC-T5442T-ZE varifocal Turret

Review-OEM Loryta IPC-T5442T-ZE Varifocal 4mp camera (Dahua)

IPC-T5442T-ZE Varifocal from @EMPIRETECANDY 4MP WDR Turret Varifocal Network Camera Review unit courtesy of Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY) in exchange for a fair and honest review. Andy's ipcamtalk store: link Andy's AliExpress store: link Andy's Amazon store: link Price Approximately US $200.00...

ipcamtalk.com

Review - OEM IPC-B5442E-ZE 4MP AI Varifocal Bullet Camera With Starlight+

Review - OEM IPC-B5442E-ZE 4MP AI Varifocal Bullet Camera With Starlight+

All, thanks to Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY ) we have a new 4MP AI camera for testing. This camera has been provided by Andy in exchange for a fair and honest review. This camera is using the OEM model number of IPC-B5442-ZE which is the equivalent of the Dahua IPC-HFW5442-ZE for reference. The IPC-B...

ipcamtalk.com

Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+ Turret

Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+

Dahua OEM IPC-T5442TM-AS from EMPIRETECANDY 4MP WDR Turret AI Network Camera Review unit courtesy of Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY) in exchange for a fair and honest review. Andy's ipcamtalk store: link Andy's AliExpress store: link Andy's Amazon store: link Price Approximately US $160 Link to camera...

ipcamtalk.com

Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Turret, Full Color, Starlight+)

Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Full Color, Starlight+)

Dahua OEM IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED from EMPIRETECANDY 4MP WDR Turret AI Network Camera Review unit courtesy of Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY) in exchange for a fair and honest review. Andy's ipcamtalk vendor forum: link Andy's AliExpress store: link Andy's Amazon store: link Andy's Email: kingsecurity2014...

ipcamtalk.com

Review: IPC-HDBW5442R-ASE-NI - Dahua Technology Pro AI Bullet Network Camera

Review: OEM IPC-B5442T-ASE-NI 4MP Pro AI Starlight Full-color Fixed Bullet

Many thanks once again to Andy @EMPIRETECANDY we have for testing the OEM IPC-B5442T-ASE-NI 4MP Starlight+ Full Color bullet. This camera has been provided by Andy in exchange for a fair and honest review. This is a fixed 3.6mm bullet (Pro AI) series with the 1/1.8” sensor. It has no built in...

ipcamtalk.com

2231 Review
Review-OEM IPC-T2231RP-ZS 2mp Varifocal Turret Starlight Camera

Review-Dahua IPC-HDW2231RP-ZS Starlight Camera-Varifocal

Again courtesy of @EMPIRETECANDY EmpireTech Andy we have a new cam to look over. Its a new model in Dahua's new Lite H265 Series of cam's. Available for purchase here: Aliexpress.com - Online Shopping for Electronics, Fashion, Home & Garden, Toys & Sports, Automobiles and more Price is approx...

ipcamtalk.com

3241T-ZAS Review

Review-OEM IPC-T3241-ZAS 2mp AI Lite series Varifocal

IPC-T3241-ZAS from EMPIRETECANDY 2MP WDR Turret Varifocal AI Network Camera Review unit courtesy of Andy (@EMPIRETECANDY) in exchange for a fair and honest review. Purchase in the IPCT Store Andy's ipcamtalk vendor forum: link Andy's AliExpress store: link Andy's Amazon store: link Price...

ipcamtalk.com

Less expensive models -

Budget Dahua Cams or china alternatives under $100?

Well here we go. I dont see anywhere more approriate to discuss this. Ive been messing around with putting together a cctv system for close to 3 years now. Ive bought everything i needed and also bought 2 cheap cams from a third party seller on walmart. Those cams cost me a grand total of $50...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Koensk]

Thanks Sebastian, that's quite some info ;-)

I just installed Blue Iris demo on my PC with the following specs:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70GHz 2.70 GHz
Geïnstalleerd RAM-geheugen 16,0 GB
And a GTX1650 Videocard

The first look is promising and I think that in the end I would be happier running blue Iris and stopping with Synology Surveilance Station.

This PC is always on due to some smaller progs that are running.
What would be the best idea?
Buying a dedicated system to run Blue Iris on?
Buying a few Purple HDD so I have enough storage on the PC?
How will I manage my backups of the files if I do so?
Or should I tell Blue Iris to write directly to the NAS?

 

[sebastiantombs]

The ideal situation is a dedicated machine for Blue Iris. In reality if your other "smaller programs" are polite, as in surrendering CPU cycles when anything else requests them, and don't use a lot of resources, CPU, memory and video processing, it shouldn't be a problem. As an example I run DeepStack, Net Time and Blue Iris Tools as well as do a little web surfing on the Blue Iris machine with no problem.

My storage is on WD purples in the Blue Iris machine. Writing to NAS can be problematic. Getting the credentials right and caching by the NAS can both present problems. Also keep in mind that the typical NAS in home use is not designed for constant, non stop, writes that video surveillance produces. I don't know how much or how long you want to keep videos, and that effects how much drive you need. Recent changes in Blue Iris allow 24/7 recording of the sub stream with automatic switching to the main stream on motion detection. Combine that with AI from DeepStack, also recently added and it changes things dramatically. I have about 13TB of drive for video storage with 18 cameras running at about 200 MP/ps, I was getting about eight days of storage. With these recent changes I am anticipating over a month of storage.

Backing up video files becomes problematic. We're talking about terabytes of data here. How much compression can be applied, to save space on the backup, I have no idea. Unless you have an insurance or Governmental requirement to maintain video for a long time I wouldn't even worry about backups. If you haven't noticed something is wrong in a month it couldn't be very important.

 

[Koensk]

Okay thanks again.
I will start looking for a dedicated machine. There is lot's to find about hardware here on this forum so I will dive into that.

 

[sebastiantombs]

From the Wiki -

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

 

[wittaj]

Many of us do not buy new and it is cheaper to buy a refurbished computer. You don't need to buy components and build one or buy a brand new computer.

Many of these refurbished computers are business class computers that have come off lease. The one I bought I kid you not I could not tell that it was a refurbished unit - not a speck of dust or dents or scratches on it. It appeared to me like everything was replaced and I would assume just the motherboard with the intel processor is what was from the original unit. I went with the lowest end processor on the WIKI list as it was the cheapest and it runs my system fine. Could probably get going for $200 or so. A real NVR will cost more than that.

A member here just last month found a refurbished 4th generation for less than $150USD that came with Win10 PRO, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB drive. More than capable. Another member runs 50 cameras on a 4th generation computer at sub 40% CPU.

 

[Koensk]

Hey all,
I found this:
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF i5-8500 16GB 256GB SSD NVMe
Would that be something?
I think I will add 3x Western Digital Purple WD40PURZ 4TB

 

[wittaj]

That would work well.

 

[Koensk]

Got everything running now. Seems to work pretty solid .
Thanks for all the advice here.

 

[catcamstar]

Succes Koen

 

[laka1]

Hi all,
My name is Koen.
A tip via some other webpage got me here.
Good to see there is so much information and experience here. Just what I was looking for.
I live in the Netherlands and own a campsite. Both home and business I run a Synology DS with a few camera's.
Works pretty well but as my parents also want 2 cams I'm thinking to buy something new for my business and move the old DS to my parents home to service the 2 cams.

I barely use the DS at my business as everything is transferred to One Drive. So I mainly use the DS for surveillance station.

So what to buy?
A dedicated server to run Xprotect or Blue Iris. Or a Synology NVR to use as a dedicated Surveillance system.
Best online casino sign up promisebyjenniferlopez.com – Online Casino Information is the service which gonna help you to login to casino safe and fast. You can enjoy blackjack or roulette from your phone.
That's my main question for now.
I think I will also be happy to search the forum about experience with camera's best buys etc.

Welcome to the forum!

 

[Jagradang]

Hey all,
I found this:
HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF i5-8500 16GB 256GB SSD NVMe
Would that be something?
I think I will add 3x Western Digital Purple WD40PURZ 4TB

How many hdd did you fit in this in the end? I'm looking at the specs (looking at buying the same machine) and it looks like it can only have 1 nvme and maybe 1 sata drive? can you confirm by any chance if this will work with the nvme and ssd

(confirming this is the same machine as you)

HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC Intel Core i5-8500 8GB RAM 256GB NVME SSD Win10 Pro | eBay

HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC Intel Core i5-8500 8GB RAM 256GB NVME SSD Win10 Pro.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[wittaj]

You can disconnect the optical drive and it gives you then the ability to add another HDD.

 

[Jagradang]

You can disconnect the optical drive and it gives you then the ability to add another HDD.

it works at slower speeds though, so I want to confirm how many drives i can actually fit in the chassis. I'm guessing 1x nvme, 1x 3.5in hdd and maybe another hdd in optical bay (if required) ?

I'm mainly concerned if the nvme and the hdd can work together and using one or the other doesn't prevent using both. The specs don't say you can have an nvme AND hdd/ssd which is what is concerning me.

 

[sebastiantombs]

There is no conflict in using an SSD/NvME drive and platter drives on the same machine. You are best served making the SSD/NvME drive the boot and home for programs and the Blue Iris database. All video should be written directly to the platter, surveillance rated, drives.

My machine currently boots from an NvME and is writing video to three platter drives with no problems in this exact configuration. There is no difference between my machine and what you are looking at in this regard. To the BIOS and the motherboard, a drive is a drive and it doesn't know, or care, if it's SSD/NvME or platter.

 

[Koensk]

How many hdd did you fit in this in the end? I'm looking at the specs (looking at buying the same machine) and it looks like it can only have 1 nvme and maybe 1 sata drive? can you confirm by any chance if this will work with the nvme and ssd

(confirming this is the same machine as you)

HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC Intel Core i5-8500 8GB RAM 256GB NVME SSD Win10 Pro | eBay

HP ProDesk 400 G5 SFF PC Intel Core i5-8500 8GB RAM 256GB NVME SSD Win10 Pro.

www.ebay.co.uk

Hi Jagradang,
I put in one WD Purple 8TB 7200rpm 256MB
Working very nice and smooth. Can record 8 cams and data is saved for a day or 4. It's true it can only hold one sata drive. For me it's sufficient.

 

[Flintstone61]

I can get 2 3.5" drives plus the NVME drive and the optical drive, in the HP EliteDesk G4 800 SFF