New installation advice

[ibrouting]

Hello all!

I have been saving to put in my first camera installs and the day has arrived! I was fortunate enough to get a server from work that they were retiring (Dual Xeon 8 core with 32GB of RAM and RAID 1TB HD) that I am going to install Blue Iris on. My needs are to be able to look down a short driveway in front (about 25' to the road) but I have a large field next to my house I would like to keep an eye on. The field is over 200 yards long by 100 yard wide, and I don't care to turn into the "neighborhood watch guy" but would like to know it if a bunch of kids are doing things they shouldn't be. I have settled on Dahua after reading as much as I possibly can comprehend and learning about things like "DORI" and the like. More than anything, I want to be able to keep an eye on things for my family while I am away. I will be putting a camera in the entryway (at 8' or less) as well as the driveway and field.

I am sure I have overlooked TONS of specifics you need. I want to use PoE for my install if at all possible because it is an existing house and a nightmare to run cable in.

So what cameras would you choose?

 

[mat200]

Hello all!

I have been saving to put in my first camera installs and the day has arrived! I was fortunate enough to get a server from work that they were retiring (Dual Xeon 8 core with 32GB of RAM and RAID 1TB HD) that I am going to install Blue Iris on. My needs are to be able to look down a short driveway in front (about 25' to the road) but I have a large field next to my house I would like to keep an eye on. The field is over 200 yards long by 100 yard wide, and I don't care to turn into the "neighborhood watch guy" but would like to know it if a bunch of kids are doing things they shouldn't be. I have settled on Dahua after reading as much as I possibly can comprehend and learning about things like "DORI" and the like. More than anything, I want to be able to keep an eye on things for my family while I am away. I will be putting a camera in the entryway (at 8' or less) as well as the driveway and field.

I am sure I have overlooked TONS of specifics you need. I want to use PoE for my install if at all possible because it is an existing house and a nightmare to run cable in.

So what cameras would you choose?

Welcome Ibrouting,

Start with the Dahua startlight varifocal turret as a base to compare your options ( IPC-HDW5231R-Z )
If you have not yet, please check out the notes below - they'll show why that is the camera to compare your options to.
Plan to add more cameras than you initially imagined to meet your requirements, if you are on a budget - you can add cameras later, just remember to pull the extra wires when you do the wiring.

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.

 

[ibrouting]

Thanks Mat! I read the first post (one of the reasons I chose Dahua) but had not found yours yet so I will read it now. I plan on pulling 2 cables to every location with the second having a 10' unused loop in it for future use. Is there a limitation to how far we should be pulling PoE?

 

[fenderman]

That old dual cpu system will cost you more to run than buying a modern system with intel hd and quicksync...put a killawatt meter on that thing under load.

 

[ibrouting]

Hi Fenderman,

I did not think about the power consumption. I have been running an older laptop with a 5th gen i5 and 8GB of RAM with 1 (old) camera on BI and I guess it just didn't use enough power for me to even consider. Do you think it will cost me 30-40$ per month to run? If so, I will need to save for a DVR.

 

[fenderman]

Hi Fenderman,

I did not think about the power consumption. I have been running an older laptop with a 5th gen i5 and 8GB of RAM with 1 (old) camera on BI and I guess it just didn't use enough power for me to even consider. Do you think it will cost me 30-40$ per month to run? If so, I will need to save for a DVR.

it depends on your electric rate likely more along the lines of 15-20....you can buy a pc suitable for your load for 150-300...

 

[ibrouting]

The other problem with true servers is they were designed to live in a data room. Most of them gave no thoughts what-so-ever to noise pollution. Might want to fire that thing up once and see if you can live with it.

I can live with the noise. It is going in a purpose built cabinet that is well ventilated on it's own circuit breaker in the laundry room. Just thinking about the cost of electricity to run it vs. a lower powered PC.

 

[Philip Gonzales]

If you have a Dell Server you can install OpenManage Server Administrator and it will give you some information on power consumption.

I've only been running Blue Iris on this server for the past month. I've used 660 kWh since April but most of that time the server has just been an SMB server. Pretty much no load. Current usage is 203W. Not sure what that means but my electrill bill did seem to go up a bit running two R710 servers.

I plan on moving blue iris to a PC as my R710's have 2.5" drives and I want to get some 4-6TB WD Purple drives. If it weren't for that I would keep using my R710 for blue iris since I already have it running 24X7. It is loud but we don't really go in the living room much.

2017-10-12_15-14-50 by philipgonzales3, on Flickr

2017-10-12_15-15-24 by philipgonzales3, on Flickr

Here's a pic of my servers

Untitled by philipgonzales3, on Flickr

4338561827021839618-account_id=1 (1) by philipgonzales3, on Flickr

 

[mat200]

Thanks Mat! I read the first post (one of the reasons I chose Dahua) but had not found yours yet so I will read it now. I plan on pulling 2 cables to every location with the second having a 10' unused loop in it for future use. Is there a limitation to how far we should be pulling PoE?

Hi ibrouting,

PoE 100 M / 328 feet - should be plenty for most of us.

If you need more look at ePoE options from Dahua, or find a way to add another switch / router in between.

 

[Philip Gonzales]

The average price in America is 12 cents per kwh. Many areas are higher. But at 12 cents you've spent $79.20 running that server since April.

Here is my rate of the last bill. I think I read online that we pay about 9 cents per kwh.
2017-10-12_15-42-52 by philipgonzales3, on Flickr

How much would I have spent using a PC? Lol just an estimate of course, I know you can't tell me down to the penny? But would it be like half of my usage of 25%? or something like that?

 

[bp2008]

Thats a new one for me, running a pair of noisy rackmount servers under the TV in the living room.

Most of those old servers that can be had for cheap are 50% or less of the speed per core compared to a modern machine, and twice the power.

 

[ibrouting]

What make/model of server? Dell, HP and Supermicro usually have power monitoring built in. If the usage is too high you can remove one of the processors and half the ram; this will drop the load 30-40%.

Another option is to run a hypervisor such as ESXi free and have BI live in a Windows virtual machine; this would allow other programs/services to run in their own VM. 16 cores is a lot of goodness...

It is a HP DL 380 G8. It probably did have some sort of monitoring software but they wiped the drives clean before I could take it. I was going ot see what it did for the 3 cams and then spin up a couple of Linux machines on it to play with.

 

[Philip Gonzales]

If I am reading it right yes, you pay 9 cents if you add the 3 charges together. So 6 months only cost you $59.40. Not bad at all. Your like me, I pay 8 cents so we don't worry much about electric costs. We are on a co-op that hasn't had a rate hike since the 80s! The people in town, 2 miles away from me pay 16 cents!

Well even at 9 cents my bill has been 250-260$ this summer. I rent and the house has very poor insulation so our Air Condition runs 24X7. I live in Texas so it is hotter than ****! Some days the AC couldn't keep the house any cooler than about 83-85 degrees F. I need to get my own house soon as that is too dang hot for me.

 

[bp2008]

203 watts for 1 month is 148.28 kilowatt hours. 148.28 times 9 cents is $13.34. That is what it costs you to run 203 watts for one month at $0.09 cents per kWh. You can at least double that cost if your air conditioner has to undo all the heat the server made.

 

[Frank Ecker]

There's a reason companies are retiring these servers and giving them away for free

 

[ibrouting]

Hi ibrouting,

PoE 100 M / 328 feet - should be plenty for most of us.

If you need more look at ePoE options from Dahua, or find a way to add another switch / router in between.

I think that will be MORE than enough! I work with our local Habitat for Humanity and we are always getting in laptops with broken screens or missing power adapters that I can get for $100. I think I may go that direction and leave the old server on the shelf.

 

[Philip Gonzales]

203 watts for 1 month is 148.28 kilowatt hours. 148.28 times 9 cents is $13.34. That is what it costs you to run 203 watts for one month at $0.09 cents per kWh. You can at least double that cost if your air conditioner has to undo all the heat the server made.

How many watts for a modern PC? Care to do the estimating for me with a newer PC?

 

[fenderman]

If you have a Dell Server you can install OpenManage Server Administrator and it will give you some information on power consumption.

I've only been running Blue Iris on this server for the past month. I've used 660 kWh since April but most of that time the server has just been an SMB server. Pretty much no load. Current usage is 203W. Not sure what that means but my electrill bill did seem to go up a bit running two R710 servers.

I plan on moving blue iris to a PC as my R710's have 2.5" drives and I want to get some 4-6TB WD Purple drives. If it weren't for that I would keep using my R710 for blue iris since I already have it running 24X7. It is loud but we don't really go in the living room much.

2017-10-12_15-14-50 by philipgonzales3, on Flickr

2017-10-12_15-15-24 by philipgonzales3, on Flickr

Here's a pic of my servers

Untitled by philipgonzales3, on Flickr

4338561827021839618-account_id=1 (1) by philipgonzales3, on Flickr

203w is crazy high....depending on your load a modern i5/i7 would be consuming 25-70 or so....for example if you live in the northeast, paying 20c a kwh, you are looking at upwards of 350 per year...even if you pay less, it would be cheaper to replace the system..

 

[fenderman]

How many watts for a modern PC? Care to do the estimating for me with a newer PC?

Here is a thread by bp2008 Blue Iris power consumption experiments
Note the he is running an older 3rd gen system, efficiency has improved over the years.
here is a test i did with an i5-4590...PC NVR Power Consumption Sample

 

[Philip Gonzales]

Here is a thread by bp2008 Blue Iris power consumption experiments
Note the he is running an older 3rd gen system, efficiency has improved over the years.
here is a test i did with an i5-4590...PC NVR Power Consumption Sample

Sounds like I better start looking to replace my servers with PC's and looking into a new house! Thanks for the info guys.