Here's my 2 cents worth. My system is similar but I don't have as many cameras. I bought refurbished as you can really trust it knowing they fixed and definitely tested the equipment.
Suggestions:
- Get a tower. Running 24/7, it's easier to keep things cooler. Make sure wiring is routed inside to allow for good air circulation. I started out with a small form factor and ended up repurposing it and bought a tower.
- Use a secondary purple drive to save images. I tried using my 12tb pr2100 cloud drive but Blue Iris seems to like a local drive much better. With that many cameras, you definitely want to make it as easy as possible for the cpu.
- You don't need SSD for the main drive
- Because of the heavy power consumption, I added an EVGA bronze 700 B power supply. Runs very quiet.
- The more RAM the better
- Have BI run as a Windows service upon startup. Don't run the program unless you need to interact with it. I believe having the program visible on screen draws more from cpu and ram.
If you are suffering from "heavy power consumption" you likely have an old inefficient system...will be cheaper to replace it..
and ssd is very useful in these systems for several reasons...as with any pc, using an ssd is very noticeable
1- it is uber reliable
2- crazy fast and will result in a snappy experience and must faster reboots for updates when and if you apply them or when power is interrupted.
3- allows you to dedicate the hdd for video.
considering they are generally 60-70 dollars on sale its a no brainer..
