is this cheap no-brand poe switch interesting?

[bp2008]

The switches are not likely to be much different in efficiency. The watt reading you see is only their power budget, i.e. how much power they are capable of outputting through PoE. Higher is better! Most fixed position IP cameras only use about 4 to 6 watts each anyway so the power budget is irrelevant most of the time.

An uplink port is to link your switch back to another switch or router, or directly to the NVR or PC doing the recording. You can technically use any port for this purpose, but if you do that on a normal 8-poe-port switch then you don't get to connect a full 8 cameras to it.

Gigabit speed won't be useful unless you want to connect a PC to it. As a general rule I only connect PCs to gigabit switches if I will ever need to do significant file transfers or other bandwidth intensive operations with them. Blue Iris PCs most definitely should be on a gigabit port.

Also consider the eagle eye switch is much smaller than the BV-tech.

 

[randyth]

The switches are not likely to be much different in efficiency. The watt reading you see is only their power budget, i.e. how much power they are capable of outputting through PoE. Higher is better! Most fixed position IP cameras only use about 4 to 6 watts each anyway so the power budget is irrelevant most of the time.

An uplink port is to link your switch back to another switch or router, or directly to the NVR or PC doing the recording. You can technically use any port for this purpose, but if you do that on a normal 8-poe-port switch then you don't get to connect a full 8 cameras to it.

Gigabit speed won't be useful unless you want to connect a PC to it. As a general rule I only connect PCs to gigabit switches if I will ever need to do significant file transfers or other bandwidth intensive operations with them. Blue Iris PCs most definitely should be on a gigabit port.

Also consider the eagle eye switch is much smaller than the BV-tech.

Thanks for the info bp2008!
I think I'm leaning towards the eagle eye switch then (since it has one more port and is smaller).

I also don't think I will be able to utilize the gigabit option.
While I will be using a blue iris machine, it shouldn't use more bandwith then say a NVR (since it will just pull the streams from the camera and store them locally on the hard drive) . So if the switch is suitable for a NVR, then it should be suitable for a basic blue iris setup aswell. That's my theory...

This point does raises one question: is it recommended to connect the switch to the main router (the main router allows for connections to the internet and wifi) and connect the blue iris macine also to the main router? (see below diagram)

Or is it recommended to connect the blue iris machine to the switch and then connect the blue iris to the main router? (see below diagram. The blue iris machine would in this scenario need to have two network cards)

My intention was the first one as it is easier to setup and will allow easier sharing of the internet connection (aswell as make the ipcameras visible to the smartphone for direct feed access).
But I can imagine the later option being more efficient in data traffic though (while the Netgear Nighthawk should have no problems with that extra traffic)


Another scenario is dropping one camera and connecting the 7 cameras and blue iris machine to the switch. Then connecting the switch to the main router through the uplink (see diagram below):

This solution combines the efficiency and simpleness of both previous scenarios (by sacrificing one camera port. But I could add the dropped eighth camera through wifi...).

 

[bp2008]

Each of your three configurations has its merits.

The first one is the option I would choose myself because it makes everything as accessible as possible and provides the BI server with a gigabit network link. I don't know about you but my BI server's network usage is averaging around 104 Mbps of video continuously right now. This is with 21 cameras active and no remote viewers. A remote viewer on the LAN using my java app can increase this number to well over 150 Mbps. So obviously a 100 Mbps network connection for my BI server would be a bad idea. You can also reach network usage levels close to this with just 7 or 8 cameras if you max out all their bit rates.

Your second option, where the BI server is the only computer with access to the cameras, is good if you are worried about network security because it basically means you are running a separate network just for your cameras, preventing the cameras from having internet access. And in the unlikely event that someone taps into your network through one of the network cables running to your outdoor cameras, they won't be able to get at anything but your cameras and your BI server.

The only benefit of your third option is that the router doesn't have to get involved in passing around 24/7 camera traffic. It would be a perfectly acceptable solution if your PoE switch had gigabit ports, but otherwise option 1 is better. No situation where you add a camera through wifi is better, by the way.

 

[randyth]

Each of your three configurations has its merits.

The first one is the option I would choose myself because it makes everything as accessible as possible and provides the BI server with a gigabit network link. I don't know about you but my BI server's network usage is averaging around 104 Mbps of video continuously right now. This is with 21 cameras active and no remote viewers. A remote viewer on the LAN using my java app can increase this number to well over 150 Mbps. So obviously a 100 Mbps network connection for my BI server would be a bad idea. You can also reach network usage levels close to this with just 7 or 8 cameras if you max out all their bit rates.

Your second option, where the BI server is the only computer with access to the cameras, is good if you are worried about network security because it basically means you are running a separate network just for your cameras, preventing the cameras from having internet access. And in the unlikely event that someone taps into your network through one of the network cables running to your outdoor cameras, they won't be able to get at anything but your cameras and your BI server.

The only benefit of your third option is that the router doesn't have to get involved in passing around 24/7 camera traffic. It would be a perfectly acceptable solution if your PoE switch had gigabit ports, but otherwise option 1 is better. No situation where you add a camera through wifi is better, by the way.

Thank you for the great analysis bp2008! I didn't see some of those points.
Scenario 1 it will be then (together with the eagle eyez switch and at first 4 camera's).
Maybe in the future i will convert to scenario 3 (when 9-port gigabit fanless switches become cheaper and the four extra camera's are added).

I really thought that 100mbit for blue iris had to be enough (since it will never be more than 8 camera's and no more than occasional 2 simultaneous remote viewers). But with high bitrate settings things could indeed get close...

 

[bp2008]

In particular if you use remote viewing methods based on jpeg images, like the ones linked in my signature below, bandwidth usage goes way up for remote viewers.

 

[wcrowder]

In particular if you use remote viewing methods based on jpeg images, like the ones linked in my signature below, bandwidth usage goes way up for remote viewers.

This is an actual graph of my Blue Iris "server" using Cacti monitoring my switch. This is with 5 3mp cameras recording at 1080p and 4 analog at D1. The Outbound from the switch, (blue line) is the cameras, (green fill) is "remote viewing". This is over the last 24 hours... This is gig, but never goes above 50meg. Would work fine on a 100meg switch. Am I missing something here?

 

[GaretJax]

Resist! I use a 24-port Netgear FS728TP which you can find on eBay for $100.00. 24 PoE ports + 4 GB ports. It works well for me. No complaints except that it's web interface is slow...but how often do I need to use the web interface? Well, after I initially configured it...never. But make certain that the unit which you are purchasing has been reset to the factory defaults. One word: this is a managed switch so it is a tad more difficult to set up than an un-managed switch.

Q2U,

I am looking at that switch now and noticed that the 24 POE ports are 10/100 and not 10/100/1000. Can a POE camera use the gigabit aspect or is the 10/100 on the POE ports irrelevant?

Thanks.

 

[alastairstevenson]

Your average 3MP camera will stream video at typically 4-8 Mbps, which is not even 10% of a 100Mbps connection, never mind a 1000Mbps connection.
To answer your question - no, the 10/100Mbps capability of a 1Gb port is not irrelevant as that is what the camera will have negotiated. I'll wager you cannot find a camera with a 1Gbps port.

 

[blake]

I use BV - TECH poe switches. Haven't had any problems with them.