New from California

[Kpog]

Hi Guys, been lurking on the forum for some time and finally decided to make an account. This site and community are so helpful.

I finally made the plunge into cameras, after having my house wired up during the construction process. I just wish I had not listened to my AV guy about 360 cameras. Fortunately and unfortunately, my av guy works at a commercial firm and helps on the weekends or after work. The only issue is that after spending considerable time reading up on this forum, I think I screwed up by not adding more junction boxes on and in the house.

I have a couple questions, does anyone have a good way of hiding network cable on the outside of the house if I want to add more cameras(which I do)? Or is there a good outdoor poe switch that could split what I already have?

Just bought my first two Dahua Cams(ipc-hdw5231r-z) and looking at a dell Optiplex system to run blue iris. I would like to put a much larger purple WD in the optiplex, does anyone know if it would be a better idea to go with an optiplex with an m.2 ssd hoping the 3.5 drive is still open, or go with one of the other options? Is an i7 necessary for maybe 8 cams max?

Thanks in advance, kpog

 

[NoloC]

I have a couple of these https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003CFATT2/ref=psdc_281414_t1_B001PS4NRM in electrical boxes. You can probably find NEMA enclosures or even a sprinkler timer box as well. The boxes I use were for a disconnect circuit breaker so not sealed but work fine. I am also in Calif.
I do keep a spare switch though just in case. Besides I'm not worried, Jerry and the idiots who run this state say we are in a permanent drought. That's why we don't fix dams.

I have a Dell 7040 and I don't think you need an m.2 drive but it would free up the space. Mine is SFF so there is only room for one 3.5" drive, a 4TB purple in my case and I stuck the system drive (2.5") in the DVD slot after removing it. Wouldn't need to do that with an m.2.

Probably don't need an I7 for 8 cams but why not future proof and get one anyway. Nice choice on the cams! Really liking mine.

Good luck!

 

[Q™]

Welcome @Kpog. 8 cameras can become 16 cameras pdq. Go with a 6th gen i7...it’ll future-proof your setup and, imo, you won’t regret it.

 

[mat200]

Hi Guys, been lurking on the forum for some time and finally decided to make an account. This site and community are so helpful.

I finally made the plunge into cameras, after having my house wired up during the construction process. I just wish I had not listened to my AV guy about 360 cameras. Fortunately and unfortunately, my av guy works at a commercial firm and helps on the weekends or after work. The only issue is that after spending considerable time reading up on this forum, I think I screwed up by not adding more junction boxes on and in the house.

I have a couple questions, does anyone have a good way of hiding network cable on the outside of the house if I want to add more cameras(which I do)? Or is there a good outdoor poe switch that could split what I already have?

Just bought my first two Dahua Cams(ipc-hdw5231r-z) and looking at a dell Optiplex system to run blue iris. I would like to put a much larger purple WD in the optiplex, does anyone know if it would be a better idea to go with an optiplex with an m.2 ssd hoping the 3.5 drive is still open, or go with one of the other options? Is an i7 necessary for maybe 8 cams max?

Thanks in advance, kpog

Welcome Kpog,

Did you manage to over wire?

Feel free to share your construction / build out experience here.

Keep the SSD for OS, use HDD for video storage.

It's easy to get swamped with information here, so I wanted to share some notes with you

Please check out @giomania 's notes:
Dahua Starlight Varifocal Turret (IPC-HDW5231R-Z)

I have also made notes which are a summary of a lot of the reading I've been doing here,:
Looking for some advice and direction!

Have fun joining us here.

 

[Kpog]

Welcome @Kpog. 8 cameras can become 16 cameras pdq. Go with a 6th gen i7...it’ll future-proof your setup and, imo, you won’t regret it.

So true how that always happens, good advice. What do you think about my solid state question? Better to go m.2 for the ssd or get another configuration to set up?

Mat, thanks for the advice, I think it was you who initially got me ordering the dahua turrets(after nayr's reviews of course). Just to make sure that I am concise, I plan to get one of the optiflexes, but was wondering if there was a drive bay open on the m.2 configured computers because that solid state drive generally sits on the mobo. Anyway, that was my thought, because I want to add a 4tb or 8tb WD purple. I love building PC's it is just hard to beat that optiflex price for something that is going to run 24/7. I think Fenderman turned me onto it, and my own extensive research afterwards.

Mat, one question, did I over wire? Are you asking if I home ran everything and put multiple ethernet cables in every room then yes. What I failed to do is add more ethernet cables terminated outside the house(I have 5 now). But I would love to share my experience, I have so many pictures of the process, and a pretty cool man cave/ tech room that I am working on right now that would be fun to share.

 

[Kpog]

BTW I am currently on the worst customer service call with dell trying to buy this thing. Dell is making it impossible
.

 

[NoloC]

Did you see @giomania 's post about the Dell Outlet Sale?
Dell Outlet Featured Deals on Computers & Laptops

 

[Kpog]

Well no, but that is the deal I was using. It turned out to be more of a problem because of the amount of people buying at the same time. I ended up talking to a really nice lady from Dell outlet and even saved more than I would have if I had gone through the normal channel. Not to mention, this one was not on their live inventory so no one knew about it.

i7 7700
m.2 128gb boot drive
8gb of ddr4 ram
on board graphics

618.00 shipped


Will work great for my purposes, now I just need to install my first two cameras, buy blue iris, set it all up and see how it works.

 

[Q™]

You need a drive to write your Blue Iris video data to.

 

[Kpog]

You need a drive to write your Blue Iris video data to.

Of course, I just wanted a boot drive that would be more out of the way so that I am able to install a bigger storage drive like WD purple in the actual drive bay.