New Computer Build - Feedback before I start buying parts?

[revbilly]

I'm replacing an old HP system that barely runs Blue Iris version 4, with a new build to support Blue Iris version 5 service and run the console. I'm a novice builder and would appreciate any constructive criticism or suggestions to improve performance or save money. I don't plan to use AI. I've decided not to buy a used system.

I will use on-board video from the processor. Here's a list of the major components:

Intel Core i5-12400 2.5GHz 6 cores
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB)
Crucial P2 500GB MJ.2-2280 SSD
WD Caviar Blue 1TB HDD
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Any advice, warnings, or dark humor would be appreciated.

 

[wittaj]

No reason to build that high end and spend that kind of money...

What processor do you have now? Maybe just upgrading to V5 and using substreams will make the older system new again. Or spend less than $200 and get an i5 8500.

People are running 50 cams on a 4th gen at 30% CPU using the substreams. Someone here has a 3rd gen with 18 cams at 25% CPU.

My humble i5-4590 still humming along with 30+ cams:

I see people posting about their i7-xxxx system bogging down with less than 10 cameras so I wanted to update my setup. I have ~33 cams running on my BI system: HP Elitedesk 800 G1 tower i5-4590 @ 3.3GHz 16GB ram 12TB total purple drives for storage 30+ total cams currently - 22 cams visible in...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[fenderman]

No reason to build that high end and spend that kind of money...

What processor do you have now? Maybe just upgrading to V5 and using substreams will make the older system new again. Or spend less than $200 and get an i5 8500.

People are running 50 cams on a 4th gen at 30% CPU using the substreams. Someone here has a 3rd gen with 18 cams at 25% CPU.

My humble i5-4590 still humming along with 30+ cams:

I see people posting about their i7-xxxx system bogging down with less than 10 cameras so I wanted to update my setup. I have ~33 cams running on my BI system: HP Elitedesk 800 G1 tower i5-4590 @ 3.3GHz 16GB ram 12TB total purple drives for storage 30+ total cams currently - 22 cams visible in...

ipcamtalk.com

To be fair, you cannot run that processor and AI on that many cams particularly if more than 1 or to are being triggered at once.

 

[fenderman]

I'm replacing an old HP system that barely runs Blue Iris version 4, with a new build to support Blue Iris version 5 service and run the console. I'm a novice builder and would appreciate any constructive criticism or suggestions to improve performance or save money. I don't plan to use AI. I've decided not to buy a used system.

I will use on-board video from the processor. Here's a list of the major components:

Intel Core i5-12400 2.5GHz 6 cores
Corsair Vengeance LPX 16GB (2x8GB)
Crucial P2 500GB MJ.2-2280 SSD
WD Caviar Blue 1TB HDD
Windows 10 Pro 64-bit

Any advice, warnings, or dark humor would be appreciated.

You dont tell us what your load will be so there is no way to know. How many cams, their resolution and fps. Will you be using AI?
Why only a 1tb HDD you likely need much more storage than that.

 

[samplenhold]

WD Caviar Blue 1TB HDD

You really should reconsider the HDD. A WD Blue drive is not rated for continuous writes like a WD Purple. While some folks do run the Blues without problems, most would recommend running the WD Purples as they are designed for surveillance cams.

A 1TB drive is not going to hold much video. I have three 10TB drives for 22 cams which gives me a little under three weeks of video storage. I record 24/7 continuous, which I also recommend you doing.

 

[revbilly]

No reason to build that high end and spend that kind of money...

What processor do you have now? Maybe just upgrading to V5 and using substreams will make the older system new again. Or spend less than $200 and get an i5 8500.

People are running 50 cams on a 4th gen at 30% CPU using the substreams. Someone here has a 3rd gen with 18 cams at 25% CPU.

My humble i5-4590 still humming along with 30+ cams:

I see people posting about their i7-xxxx system bogging down with less than 10 cameras so I wanted to update my setup. I have ~33 cams running on my BI system: HP Elitedesk 800 G1 tower i5-4590 @ 3.3GHz 16GB ram 12TB total purple drives for storage 30+ total cams currently - 22 cams visible in...

ipcamtalk.com

----------------------------
My old system is an HP Slimline Desktop 260-a010z I bought in 2016 and it can't even run the console without choking. I'm using substreams in V4 now, and I'm paying less than $200 for the i5-12400.

 

[wittaj]

V4 didn't offer the substreams option as that was offered later in a V5 update, unless you meant you were not using mainstream at all.

Oh wow if less than $200 then cool.

 

[revbilly]

You dont tell us what your load will be so there is no way to know. How many cams, their resolution and fps. Will you be using AI?
Why only a 1tb HDD you likely need much more storage than that.

I said in my post that I'm not planning to use AI. I currently only have five cams - Two are 720x480, two are 1920x1080, and one is 1920x1080. I'll be upgrading the old SDs to HDs or UHDs in the near future, and will likely be adding 2-3 more cams. So, I'm trying to build a stable platform for BI with up to 10 cams at HD resolution, no AI software, and to run the console without choking.

I don't record anything to disk except motion sensor alerts on 2-3 of the cams. I couldn't find an up to date build guide on this site, so I chose 1TB as a starting point because it was the recommendation in a BI build guide from 2022 that I found online.

 

[revbilly]

V4 didn't offer the substreams option as that was offered later in a V5 update, unless you meant you were not using mainstream at all.

Oh wow if less than $200 then cool.

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I wasn't sure the substreams were working either, so I reduced the resolution on the main streams and my V4 console still chokes or crashes every day on my sad little HP.

 

[revbilly]

You really should reconsider the HDD. A WD Blue drive is not rated for continuous writes like a WD Purple. While some folks do run the Blues without problems, most would recommend running the WD Purples as they are designed for surveillance cams.

A 1TB drive is not going to hold much video. I have three 10TB drives for 22 cams which gives me a little under three weeks of video storage. I record 24/7 continuous, which I also recommend you doing.

--------------

Thanks. My HDD knowledge is weak, and that's advice I can use. I'll switch that drive to Purple and double the storage space. I'm not recording much to disk. I only do continuous recording to SD cards in the cams themselves.

 

[fenderman]

I said in my post that I'm not planning to use AI. I currently only have five cams - Two are 720x480, two are 1920x1080, and one is 1920x1080. I'll be upgrading the old SDs to HDs or UHDs in the near future, and will likely be adding 2-3 more cams. So, I'm trying to build a stable platform for BI with up to 10 cams at HD resolution, no AI software, and to run the console without choking.

I don't record anything to disk except motion sensor alerts on 2-3 of the cams. I couldn't find an up to date build guide on this site, so I chose 1TB as a starting point because it was the recommendation in a BI build guide from 2022 that I found online.

HD resolution is 1080p. If you don't intend to use AI which is silly because it's awesome. You need 50 dollar system. If you want to give yourself some buffer room buy a used i-8500 system for 150 bucks. What you are proposing is a complete waste of money. Anyone who tells you to buy a one terabyte drive in a build guide cannot be trusted. Pick up a four terabyte drive at the minimum. You also don't provide the specs of your current system just the model which doesn't help us because there are many variations. There's a 99% of chance that the current system you have now is completely capable but you misconfigured.

 

[revbilly]

HD resolution is 1080p. If you don't intend to use AI which is silly because it's awesome. You need 50 dollar system. If you want to give yourself some buffer room buy a used i-8500 system for 150 bucks. What you are proposing is a complete waste of money. Anyone who tells you to buy a one terabyte drive in a build guide cannot be trusted. Pick up a four terabyte drive at the minimum. You also don't provide the specs of your current system just the model which doesn't help us because there are many variations. There's a 99% of chance that the current system you have now is completely capable but you misconfigured.

--------

I don't want a system with a bunch of 7+ year old components, but I'm sure you're right - My old system is probably misconfigured. Is there a clear, up to date configuration guide here that I could use to correct it? In any case, I don't think my 7 year old HP Slimline is going to meet my needs. Here are the specs:
Windows 10 Home
ACADPT 90W Smart PFC
AMD A6-7310 2.0GHz Carrizo-L cTDP 12W; 4 Cores; 2MB L2 Cache; Max Memory Speed: DDR3-1866 and RadeonTM R4 Series: VGA, HDMI
1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6G 3.5 Hard Drive
Ultra Slim-tray SuperMulti DVD burner
802.11b/g/n (1x1) and Bluetooth® 4.0 M.2 combo
16GB DDR3L-1600 (1x4GB) SODIMM

Bottom line is I want a stable system I can trust, and I can build a new system for well under $1k. I just want to get some help making the right purchase decisions, and maybe get some configuration tips for the new system. I'm not rich, but I am retired.

 

[wittaj]

Many people use older machines than that and are very stable.

Follow every optimization in the wiki

Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage

Blue Iris uses a lot of CPU time. In most Blue Iris installations, your CPU is the limiting factor which determines how many cameras you can have. As such, it is extremely important to optimize your configuration to ensure you can get the most out of your system while consuming the least...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[revbilly]

You really should reconsider the HDD. A WD Blue drive is not rated for continuous writes like a WD Purple. While some folks do run the Blues without problems, most would recommend running the WD Purples as they are designed for surveillance cams.

A 1TB drive is not going to hold much video. I have three 10TB drives for 22 cams which gives me a little under three weeks of video storage. I record 24/7 continuous, which I also recommend you doing.

-----------

Maybe you can help me understand this. I shopped Purple drives and noticed that most of them are running at 5400 RPM. Since most of the other high end HDDs I was looking at were 7200 it struck me as odd. I suspect I misunderstand the relationship between RPMs and streaming performance. I must be missing something here.

 

[fenderman]

--------

I don't want a system with a bunch of 7+ year old components, but I'm sure you're right - My old system is probably misconfigured. Is there a clear, up to date configuration guide here that I could use to correct it? In any case, I don't think my 7 year old HP Slimline is going to meet my needs. Here are the specs:
Windows 10 Home
ACADPT 90W Smart PFC
AMD A6-7310 2.0GHz Carrizo-L cTDP 12W; 4 Cores; 2MB L2 Cache; Max Memory Speed: DDR3-1866 and RadeonTM R4 Series: VGA, HDMI
1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6G 3.5 Hard Drive
Ultra Slim-tray SuperMulti DVD burner
802.11b/g/n (1x1) and Bluetooth® 4.0 M.2 combo
16GB DDR3L-1600 (1x4GB) SODIMM

Bottom line is I want a stable system I can trust, and I can build a new system for well under $1k. I just want to get some help making the right purchase decisions, and maybe get some configuration tips for the new system. I'm not rich, but I am retired.

Yes your current system is garbage and was garbage back in 2016. The weak point is the processor. Its score 1700 passmark score is so bad that hp should be ashamed of selling it.
You can trust the hp/dell business systems. I literally have over 20 in use with BI. Some as old as 2012 running 24/7. You are tossing your money down the drain. If you still want a new system there are refurbished systems (these are returns and are always perfect - I have purchased hundreds over the years) available on ebay with 3 year next business day on site warranties that will cost buy to build than your proposed system.

Dell Optiplex 5000 TWR Desktop Intel i5-12500 512GB SSD 8GB DVDRW W11P 3YR 2YEAR | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Dell Optiplex 5000 TWR Desktop Intel i5-12500 512GB SSD 8GB DVDRW W11P 3YR 2YEAR at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

But you really only need a sub 200 system for your load. In fact a 50 dollar pc will be 3-4 times more powerful than your current pc.
Buy this add a stick of ram and an ssd. Windows will install free using the microsoft media creation tool. This will be way overkill actually.

HP EliteDesk 800 G4 SFF Intel i5-8500 3GHz 8GB DDR4 Fair No COA HDD | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for HP EliteDesk 800 G4 SFF Intel i5-8500 3GHz 8GB DDR4 Fair No COA HDD at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[Rob2020]

If you build, buy a good power supply, the Seasonic silent PS I picked up a few years back came with a 10 year warranty. Running 24/7/365 it is nice to have quality fans, low noise, reliability.

I would buy a 4TB WD Purple HD, the price difference is small and you can record to HD and SD.

 

[Flintstone61]

I can share from experience, that the WD blue drives are using SMR technology vs the Purple drives which use CMR technology. The SMR drive i had 6TB WD WD60EZAZ did not perform well when asked to retrieve yesterdays videos while performing continous writes from the cams.

When does SMR make sense, when does CMR?
SMR hard disks are a good choice if they are primarily used as pure data storage or if a large hard disk is to be used for a PC on which data is stored. They offer more storage capacity and are more energy efficient than CMR, which makes them ideal for archiving tasks. Basically, SMR hard disks are not particularly well suited if the hard disk is to be constantly and permanently doing write operations, as this can lead to a cache overflow. In this case, a hard disk with a CMR recording method should definitely be used.
CMR hard disks are a good choice when data is to be stored at high transfer rates or particularly large amounts of data. This includes a large number of activities from music streaming and image processing to use for NAS servers.

https://www.reichelt.com/magazin/en/guide/smr-cmr-which-hard-drive-is-best-for-which-purpose/

 

[Flintstone61]

I appreciate your desire to build your own,
I used to work at MicroCenter Computers in St. Louis park Mn. and have assisted many PC enthusiast in picking out components. Although....this was the year 2000-2001....everything has changed.....
Sometimes you just can't talk a guy out of a build it yourself mode. and thats fine. I've built a few PC's.
These guys commenting on your situation, are very knowledgeable on the forum.
I took Fendermans advice after my Frankenplex didn't perform stably. removed an i-3 from a Optiplex 7020 inserted an i7 3770S, and had thermal issues.
Found a Dell Precision heat sink that fit into the case and got it down to 72-75C.
but may have suffered from thermal throttling.
Couple that with an SMR drive doing its magic tricks of overflowing cache buffers, and you get a frozen PC.

I got the Hp Elitedesk G4-800 i5-8500.
It's running at a Condo with 19 Cams, and a DVR feed of 9 cams, and a WD 8TB purple, and a WD 5TB white label ( likely a shucked drive from a WD passport- bought on ebay)
It's quiet, energy efficient and the " Tool-less" design makes working inside a pleasing experience.
Also on my list of recommenations for reasons of expandability is the Dell Precision 3630 Tower, touting 3-3.5" bays, Nvidia RX3070 support or full size graphics cards, with the Power supply rated to suppport them.

 

[Smilingreen]

--------

I don't want a system with a bunch of 7+ year old components, but I'm sure you're right - My old system is probably misconfigured. Is there a clear, up to date configuration guide here that I could use to correct it? In any case, I don't think my 7 year old HP Slimline is going to meet my needs. Here are the specs:
Windows 10 Home
ACADPT 90W Smart PFC
AMD A6-7310 2.0GHz Carrizo-L cTDP 12W; 4 Cores; 2MB L2 Cache; Max Memory Speed: DDR3-1866 and RadeonTM R4 Series: VGA, HDMI
1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6G 3.5 Hard Drive
Ultra Slim-tray SuperMulti DVD burner
802.11b/g/n (1x1) and Bluetooth® 4.0 M.2 combo
16GB DDR3L-1600 (1x4GB) SODIMM

Bottom line is I want a stable system I can trust, and I can build a new system for well under $1k. I just want to get some help making the right purchase decisions, and maybe get some configuration tips for the new system. I'm not rich, but I am retired.

My PC is 10 years old, it runs 6 cams just perfect running V5. I have a 4TB WD Purple and 16 GB of ram all running on (gasp) Win7 Pro. My CPU load is 16%. Where my home is, I have no need to run AI. I really depends on where you live, what you are trying to accomplish with your system and can the hardware available at a lower price accomplish the task of what you need vs. latest and greatest PC that won't be utilized by most of the system. To me, I would spend more money on better isolated POE++ switches with plenty of ports and capable of handling more bandwidth.

 

[revbilly]

I can share from experience, that the WD blue drives are using SMR technology vs the Purple drives which use CMR technology. The SMR drive i had 6TB WD WD60EZAZ did not perform well when asked to retrieve yesterdays videos while performing continous writes from the cams.

When does SMR make sense, when does CMR?
SMR hard disks are a good choice if they are primarily used as pure data storage or if a large hard disk is to be used for a PC on which data is stored. They offer more storage capacity and are more energy efficient than CMR, which makes them ideal for archiving tasks. Basically, SMR hard disks are not particularly well suited if the hard disk is to be constantly and permanently doing write operations, as this can lead to a cache overflow. In this case, a hard disk with a CMR recording method should definitely be used.
CMR hard disks are a good choice when data is to be stored at high transfer rates or particularly large amounts of data. This includes a large number of activities from music streaming and image processing to use for NAS servers.

https://www.reichelt.com/magazin/en/guide/smr-cmr-which-hard-drive-is-best-for-which-purpose/

-----------------

Thanks for educating me on that. Do the CMR drives last as long? I'm not sure I need it, because I only record for motion alerts, and that only on 2-3 of the cams. I don't do constant recording on any of them, although I do have some of the individual cams set to record on motion detection to the SD card. But if the CMR drives have similar life expectancy, I'd go with that for this system.