New build 40 cameras 4K , what would you do ?

crw030 said:
Sure, this ought to work.

Finally Completed - New EPYC build & Limit Test - (Extremely Unnecessary Builds)

I estimate (40 * 8.3MP cameras @ 20FPS) using substreams if I did the math would be about 6500 MP/s effective full-rez recorded and another 600MP/s in substreams. With this configuration in testing, I got up to 52 cameras and 7200 MP/s effective running dual-GTX1650 video cards and drawing 200+ watts constantly from the wall.

Of course you could just build multiple little desktop systems for a lot less.
Click to expand...

I don't think he's going to want to maintain multiple systems.

Are you off loading computing to the dual GTX1650's ? Can we do that ? Haven't built anything that needed or was able to do so.
 
Tried it both ways, post #10 I had 53 cameras running with substreams only on the CPU. My concern is that my 53 cameras were all lower than you are proposing, but if @bp2008 can check my math, I did have 6500 MP/s running in that configuration just on the CPU.
In post #11, I had 20 of the high MP cameras running without substreams on the GTX1660 SUPERs just to test some limitations. But I can't think of a practical reason to not use substreams for a large camera system.

Some things to consider:
  • Multiple business desktops running Blue Iris
    • You could probably run 6-10 repurposed business desktops for the same purchase cost as this system last year (pre-covid), and with substreams you probably would only need 2 or 3 for the load.
    • With Intel built-in graphics instead of a graphics card (required of all AMD CPU's unless you happen to have the new APU's available) I'm not sure there would be a big enough power difference to justify the added cost of a "single server".
    • A "single server" approach also means several "single points of failure" (memory, cpu, power supply, MB, graphics, onboard controllers) you have to tolerate or mediate (dual power supplies, multiple hard drives etc). Multiple desktops = built in redundancy.
    • Maybe consider a commercial solution instead.
  • Commercial Solutions are built for this type of use case. I cant remember the ones @fenderman always recommends, but on both IPTV and this forums there are multiple discussions to address the non-hobbyist systems. (
    fenderman said:
    Nxwitness which is sold in North America by digital watchdog ipvms.
    Click to expand...

  • Building ANY NEW system will be difficult this year.
    • You will significantly higher prices for all new components and double or triple price for ANY GPU
    • You will have availability challenges for power supplies, good CPU's or ANY GPU.
  • Power Consumption
    • Total power consumption may be slightly higher with separate smaller systems, but hard to tell for sure because you won't now how many smaller systems (2 x 100W systems would be about the same I was running)
    • You must add a video card with nearly all AMD CPUs, the built in Aspeed AST2500 graphics chip is worthless for anything but basic BIOS & windows desktop. Factor that into total power consumption.
    • I was tempted to use an older/cheaper Quadro card, but two newer GTX1660 SUPER cards were lower power and provided much more throughput. Be aware I hit a software limit on the number of streams I could offload to the GTX1660 cards, I believe Nvidia has this limit to differentiate between their consumer and commercial cards.
    • Cranking out 200w - 300w around the clock also means you have a significant amount of heat you need to plan to deal with or the room the systems are in will become a sauna.
 
Last edited:
"Building ANY NEW system will be difficult this year"

I agree. When I went in to order my computer in person, the only reason I went with a I7 rather than an I9 is the wait times, they could not find an I9 within 30 days so I went with the I7. Same story on hard drives, the only purple they could find within a few weeks was 8TB. All the smaller drives were sold out, don't need 8TB at all, but just wanted to keep moving forward.
 
Oh I'm well aware of heat, and the stupid cost of hardware now. Fortunately money isn't a problem in this build, and he's aware that this isn't the time to find deals.

It's going to be expensive, but he wants me to put something together. And to be honest I want to build it :)

I believe I'm liking the i9-10900k , just still searching through boards as I need more sata ports.

CS380B SilverstoneCS380B Silverstone case
i9-10900k
750w 80+ gold PSU
JBOD card ? I have yet to have a good server grade card fail yet . Yea it's possible, but not probable in my experience.
32Gb memory is a no brainer for this build.
512Gb NVMe for OS and software
So I'm thinking 7 X 16TB RAID10 He's the one wanting 30 days as close to 4k as we can be. Or I liked the idea of grouping cameras per drive as I didn't think of that.

It's going to be his option as it's all about how important it will be to him with the cost of drives.

I believe it will be headless, so that should help as no one is going to want to sit next to this thing.
 
The only thing I'd be a little concerned about is exactly what memory bandwidth is required. In my testing substreams significantly reduced the need for high memory bandwidth but your proposed configuration is at the extreme end.

I usually check: Blue Iris Update Helper so see if there are any systems comparable to at least have SOME points of reference. The highest MP/s systems over there are using: i9-7980XE CPU which is an older CPU but does have quad-channel memory.
The CPU you proposed is newer, but is only dual-channel memory controller. Hard to know if that might be a problem with so many hi resolution video streams without testing. Probably OK, but worth testing before spending big money.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: SouthernYankee
I have a ASUS Prime X299 Deluxe here. Pairing that with a i9-7980XE would be a better solution ? Was pulled off the job for a bit, and just getting back at this.

Thoughts on that board ?

How many cameras can record to one drive at a time ? Any experience with that ? Skip the raid and just pair a few cameras to a single drive I'm thinking. Just to save drive cost for now. I also hate paying these prices.
 
This will not be taken well…consider
Putting it on a Synology NAS. All the data will be stored across two RAID I redundant drives. Calculate the necessary drive size. If you need more than 2 bays, get 4,6,8 bays
Surveillance Station will not have a problem.
Best of luck.

Screenshots
flic.kr

Synology

Synology Screenshots from NAS and NAS packages
flic.kr flic.kr

Synology NAS.
www.synology.com

Surveillance Station | Synology Inc.

Synology Surveillance Station is an NVR (network video recorder) system to safeguard security through IP camera monitoring. Surveillance Station offers in-depth integration with IP camera venders, providing a reliable CMS (centralized management system) solution for individual property security...
www.synology.com www.synology.com
 
Raids are not recommend for video. Try recovering a raid on a running system with a high write data rate, I have and it ran for days trying to recover. TEST DO NOT GUESS.
Writing directly to a NAS is not recommend, if you are running BI. A NAS as a save device in BI is OK, as you are writing Complete files. Record or block writes to a NAS with 40+ simultaneous connections is asking for problems.
 
  • Like
Reactions: sebastiantombs and looney2ns
Straight away, I am ignorant to all but about 2% of the technical skills necessary to implement a video surveillance system. About. That drops to .02% when it’s a commercial video surveillance system.

Basically I look at nice marketing pictures and play spec sheet bingo. When presented with a pull down menu on a configuration screen I’m a lot like a contestant on “The Family Feud”. I do know you want to purchase a grade of HD for both NAS/Security applications that is capable of writing continuously. Desktop drives don’t cut it. I just used up 0.25%


They do have some impressive projects
Customer Stories | Synology Incorporated

Customer Stories | Synology Incorporated

Learn how our current customers are using Synology products to boost their productivity and increase their ROI.
www.synology.com www.synology.com
 
  • Like
Reactions: sebastiantombs
Yes you are Ignorant. Why believe company marketing post. pure useless crap. TEST DO NOT GUESS....
 
  • Like
Reactions: looney2ns and sebastiantombs
I don't think you can get away with 12hrs recording.

Great recording when shops open for shoplifters, but any burglaries will be in the 12 hours when the shop is closed.

You need 24hr surveillance. No reason why 12 hrs of it can't be motion or trip wire detection so no actual recording without, but it can't be 12 hrs unless you want to miss that burglary or smash and grab.

40 cameras is a lot of cameras. Sounds like a big supermarket.
 
40 cams ?

Sounds like "needed" security...
please stop thinking about buying some crappy consumer i9 with 1 nvme, 1 psu ... if one fail, you will loose the whole system.

try to buy an old cheap 19" server like HP DL380 GEN9 12LFF (you can also split for 2x DL380.. they are cheap... this machine can boot from pcie nvme (dell equivalent cant) ... put 2x nvme raid1 (need for software raid on this old machines) in it for operating system... buy raid controller like hp p840 or p440 (you need extender card if planning to use all 12 drives), or just buy a cheap LSI card. but sometimes they dont work on server hardware if they are not from same manufacture.

try to get 2x xeon e5-26xx v4 (depends on what u need cores or single core perfomance or both ..)
avoid using ZFS or equivalent (will eat your ram/cpu on heavy drive access)
avoid using raid on storage ... split the cams to the harddrives (it will take MONTHS to recover the raid with 16TB drives)
if you want raid like, use ZFS ... but you will put more money on ram/cpu ... you could also use 1 server for video encoding and 1 for storage to avoid cpu/memory bottlenecks.
only use server graded harddrives like seagate exos ... cause of CHIA COIN they are not really cheap anymore, but you can get them a bit cheapter as "Seagate Expansion Desktop 16TB" and shuck it.

this machines are designed to run 24/7 and have many redundant parts like psu ..
 
Last edited:
Whoa, back to confusion. If we have a failure, we can deal with a day or two tops. The only issue with multiple systems is multiple ends of failure. More raid drives, more chance of a drive going. I see both ends.

The idea of the i9-7980XE was to aid with quick sync. Mild video card if I need to offload. Also BI shows great numbers for the i9-7980XE.
 
@Cire3

Just stop there and consult someone who have an idea what he is doing.

You are running in so many problems,

1) raid rebuild time -> one drive fails ... it may take days to months to rebuild the raid, when rebuilding, the system is useless
2) you are not using a real raid controller with a backup battery -> you may destroy your raid on power failure
3) you dont have a redundant power supply -> you may loose some data on power failure (even when not using raid)
4) you are not using server hardware -> not for 24/7 , stability problems , etc

just a few concerns... there are many more... building a home server for nvr , surveillance or whatever is nice, but in company use ? who would do this. even putting 6-8 harddrives in a consumer case... you will have to turn off the whole system if you want to change one drive. they are not hotpluggable.. will it start again after 2 years running? who knows. buying a case with hotplug option is more $$$.
deal with one or two days downtime ? Why do you need the system ?

Its not only about benchmark... its nice that the i9 have nice numbers.. but what about the mobo, ram , psu .... ??
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom