i7 4790 PC for BI

[erkme73]

I have no affiliation with any hardware manufacturer or retailer. I just wanted to let anyone who is interested in getting a faster system for BI know that the subject PC has dropped in price to where it's almost impossible to ignore. $420 for an Acer factory refurbished system that should be able to support 30+ cameras right out of the box.

I just purchased one to replace the i5 Brix I installed in my vacation home. The Brix is running at about 70% with 24 Hiks - all set to 15FPS, 720P, not D2D. I have a similar i7-4790 at home, with 30 Hiks, same config, and it's sitting at 50% CPU.

Anyway, I just thought at this price people ought to know...

MODS: If this is inappropriate, or somehow violates the T&C's of the board, please delete/move accordingly.

 

[w1zofaz]

This has perked up my ears. Anybody want to chime in as to is this a good deal? 5400rpm HD? How does this one compare to the Optiplex that go on sell at the outlet?

Currently running BI on my main PC (an I5) but would love to get another PC so I can game again. lol

 

[Plasman]

Thanks very much for this link. Acer PC's have an awful rep but the price is fantastic. For example, Frys has the i7-4790 cpu on sale for $277 today. The parts alone make this refurb a great deal. I'm going to order unless someone here has a good reason not to!

 

[erkme73]

I've been running an Acer Aspire TC series (refurbed) - with an i7-4770 CPU and 32gb ram for the last two years - and it has been rock solid running every version of BI since then. Granted, I'm still on Windows 7 Ultimate. I paid $600 for it at the time - which was a great deal.

But, for $400? No brainer.

 

[fenderman]

The dell outlet has the optiplex i7-4790 machines on sale for 429 (the lowest ive seen) to about 500. I would prefer the dell. Windows pro, 3 year next business day warranty.
Nothing against acer, my uncle is still rocking an acer desktop from 2008 and a 2010 acer laptop...no issues.

 

[w1zofaz]

fenderman guess I missed that sale. Lowest one I saw was 799.00

 

[Plasman]

I ordered the Acer - I'll report back. If the MB is standard size, I'll move the guts to my rack PC case that has an old Celeron in it now....

My BI adventure is about to begin

Howard in San Diego

 

[erkme73]

Dell Outlet is hit or miss. They may only have a single unit, or a handful. So unless you're at the right place/time, you'll likely not find stellar deals. Worth looking - but anytime I get an alert about Dell Outlet pricing, by the time I make it to their site, inevitably, the deal is sold out/over.

When I bought the Acer from the eBay link above, I was number 26 - that was two days ago. Their counter, if accurate, is showing they've sold 152 so far (with a >50% sold notice). Who knows why they have so many. It could be that these are crap, or more likely, a large company went under, or upgraded and these were on lease. Either way, the fact that they're certified by Acer (not the seller), and my own personal (but limited) experience makes me more than confident to try it. I wish it were smaller. The Brix was perfect. I mounted it between studs in a hidden compartment in my vacation home. If someone broke in, they'd never find it. Ironically, that Brix cost almost twice as much by the time I had the missing hardware installed. This larger unit will have to be relocated to another larger but also hidden location.

 

[fenderman]

Dell Outlet is hit or miss. They may only have a single unit, or a handful. So unless you're at the right place/time, you'll likely not find stellar deals. Worth looking - but anytime I get an alert about Dell Outlet pricing, by the time I make it to their site, inevitably, the deal is sold out/over.

All you need to do is set an alert on slickdeals, dell has a sale twice a month. Lots of folks here have purchased them. Even ebay has decent deals if you are patient.
Here is a small form factor (if you dont want/need extra hard drive space) http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Optiplex-9020-USFF-i7-4790S-3-2Ghz-4GB-DDR3-120GB-SSD-Windows-7-Pro-64bit-/141938609073?hash=item210c334bb1:g:fZ8AAOSwdU1W82Gp

 

[erkme73]

Just wanted to report back that the PC arrived yesterday. I wiped the drive, downloaded the Win10 ISO from Microsoft, and installed it via thumbdrive. In about 30 minutes, I had a naked Win10 Home system, activated (key is on the bios now), with no bloat/adware (beyond the stuff Microsoft puts in by default).

After tweaking it to my liking, I installed a trial version of BI. For grins, I exported the currently configured Win7 BI server at the vacation home (with 24 cameras, all settings as I like them), and imported it on the new Win10 system. Since this new machine is not on the same LAN as the cameras, I had 24 images of 'no signal'. But, no errors, no glitches. It just seems to work. I'll deactivate the BI license once I get the machines side-by-side.

Is it really that simple? Will the export from a BI4 running on W7 really just seamlessly import onto a W10 machine? I have to pinch myself.

 

[Plasman]

Good for you! Nice work. I ordered too and got a UPS tracking number 3 days ago but it still does not show as picked up. Not sure if I should be concerned. I see that they raised the price over $100 now..

Please tell me how you installed the fresh ISO. Were you able to use the Acer Windows 10 license number?

 

[erkme73]

My dad ordered one too, and it showed that it was in Georgia for two days. On the third day, UPS delivered it to his door, and the tracking still showed it in GA (dad's in FL).

As for the fresh install - you simply download the Win10 ISO from MS. You have to download their 'tool' which in turn, downloads the ISO (just pick "installing this on another PC" to get the ISO option). Then 'burn' the ISO to a USB thumbdrive using any number of ISO to USB thumbdrive tools. You'll have to enter the BIOS of the new machine (del key) and enable the boot menu option (under boot options). Then reboot, and press F12. A small blue box will let you choose your USB stick. From there, follow the prompts. I deleted all the existing partitions (including recovery) - created a new single partition, and installed on it.

You WILL NOT be prompted for a key since the newer PCs contain the keys within the BIOS. When the system comes up, you'll see your Win10 Home edition is fully activated. Let it sit a minute or two, and it will automatically download the latest drivers for everything. You'll have zero yellow icons in your device manager.

 

[Plasman]

I get it. Thanks much.
One more question. I've got a new 500gb Seagate drive lying around. Should I put the OS and BI on that and then use the 1GB as a data drive only? Any value in an SSD for the OS and BI?

 

[erkme73]

I get it. Thanks much.
One more question. I've got a new 500gb Seagate drive lying around. Should I put the OS and BI on that and then use the 1GB as a data drive only? Any value in an SSD for the OS and BI?

I don't know how to advise you on this, other than to refer what the developer (Ken) recommends. The database for clips, by default, is placed on the operating system drive (C:\Blue Iris\DB). Ken states that this DB should be on the fastest drive (SSD recommended). The recorded clips themselves, should NOT be put on an SSD, since the constant writing will cause the the drive to fail sooner - SSD's have limited write cycles.

So, what I've done on all my BI servers is the following:

1) Us an SSD for the OS - I typically get one just large enough to handle the OS, incidental programs, the BI app, and its associated files. A 128GB has been more than adequate. If your system is not a dedicated BI machine, then you may want to go larger.

2) Use a physical/mechanical/platter-based HDD for the clip storage. While you can use an internal HDD, using an external USB or network attached storage (NAS) drive is better (IMHO) as it provides physical separation between the PC and the video evidence.

Assuming your using the BI setup for security purposes, you don't want the burglar stealing the PC that has the evidence inside it. External USB is better, but generally is still in the same room, or at the end of a USB cable - so it'll probably grow legs too, in the event of a burglary. A NAS, on the other hand, can be put ANYWHERE in the house where you have a network cable and power. Attic, under the floor boards, in a shoe box in the closet... places where a burglar would be unlikely to find it. If they snatch the PC, you still have all the evidence.

So, in summary, use the fastest drive you have for the OS, and the largest you have for storage.

 

[dryfly]

Over the months I've read pro's and con's for the use of external drives. Obviously the read/write times will be slower with USB externals vs. direct SATA cable to MB, but other than that are there any reliability issues with going external? I agree that the theft issue would be lower by moving a USB drive a few feet away from the computer case.

 

[erkme73]

Over the months I've read pro's and con's for the use of external drives. Obviously the read/write times will be slower with USB externals vs. direct SATA cable to MB, but other than that are there any reliability issues with going external? I agree that the theft issue would be lower by moving a USB drive a few feet away from the computer case.

I can only speak from my limited personal experience with external USB drives. I think their reliability is questionable at best. On different machines and under various scenarios, I've had drives randomly dismount. Usually they're immediately remount (tell-tale ding-dong sound) - but sometimes they don't. Further, some PC's have known issues with booting while an external HDD is attached. It's a problem that has plagued Windows over editions - starting with W7 in my case. Both my brother and father have seen this, each running different brand PCs. Google is full of people who ultimately never solved the issue. It has to do with Windows Boot Manager not being able to ignore an attached HDD. I won't go into details as to how and why, but for many the issue is unresolved. Unlike pre-UEFI BIOS where you could specify a boot device, the newer hardware combined with the boot manager in Windows gets snowed.

Anyway, I've abandoned USB HDDs because of these reliability issues - and the theft angle.

One thing I will say is that the combined bandwidth of my system (running 30+ cameras) is about 80 megaBITS per second (or roughly 10 megaBYTES per second. While SATA drives can write at speeds around 500-600 megaBYTES, USB3 HDD will run about 120 megaBYTES. And while that's only about 20% of the SATA speeds, it's still 12x faster than what is needed for 30 cameras. Besides, no desktop PC will be able to handle the computing power necessary to RECORD 30 cameras simultaneously.

The NAS I'm using will write at about 70 megaBYTES per second - or about 7x faster than I'll ever need. So, speed of SATA vs. USB vs. NAS will not be the limiting/deciding factor when the primary us is with BI.

 

[Plasman]

Erkme73,
Your 'limited' experience sounds pretty substantial to me. Thanks for all this great info.

ps - my Acer went from not being in the UPS system to 'out for delivery' today

 

[dryfly]

erkme73:

Good info. BTW I was referring to a homebrew USB drive using high quality HD and good enclosure, not an off the rack backup external. But still, using a normal enclosure, the HD would probably get pretty warm running full time.

I too have experienced issues booting windows with a USB HD online. From a theft standpoint I guess a NAS is still the best solution. Also, from what I've heard desktops are not near as popular with thieves as laptops. Big concern would be if they recognized camera install and were smart enough to steal the evidence.

 

[Plasman]

Another big thank you to Erkme73 for posting this thread. The Acer turns out to be a very well built machine for the bargain price we paid. I'm waiting for my SSD drive before installing BI. One more question - are the onboard Intel graphics good enough for BI? I plan on 8 cameras. BTW, I received my first camera today -the Hikvision DS-2CD2335i mentioned on these forums. Also a bargain at $69. Gotta love IPCamTalk. Howard

 

[ldasilva]

how are you guys getting such great cpu usage on a i7-4790...i have a E3-1245v3 which is just a little bit slower then the i7 and my cpu usage is hitting around 70% with DoD and most of my cams are at around 10-15fps....
12 hik 1080
11 old school 640