Newb from Ohio with Initial System Costs

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I was initially tempted to go with a packaged system. After reading through many threads and seeing the warnings against the packaged system I decided to go with a BI system. I have read through some of the wiki and was able to get the initial setup up and running quickly. Our family has a hobby farm so the system is mainly to keep on eye on the animals when we are out of town with the benefit to see if there are any strangers on the property. I am a manufacturing engineer by day and consider myself above average in electrical and networking knowledge. I am more of a thread reader and probably will not be posting much.

Below is the cost I have in my system.

Found an older custom gaming tower that I bought locally - $150
i7-47770K
8GB G-Skill Ripjaws X Series
Gigabyte GA-Z97X-SLI
Nvidia GTX 750 (Read that I should get rid of this since it is a power hog with no benefit in BI)
1TB SSHD w/ Activated Windows

Added in a renewed WD10EURX 1 TB HDD - Amazon - $30
I just was trying to shave a few bucks off the system and was willing to accept the risk of early failure since my needs aren't critical.

Syston Cat5e pure copper 24AWG Outdoor UV rated CMR 500' - Amazon - $53

TP-Link TL-SG1008P - Amazon - $50

BV Tech SW502 - Amazon - $37
Will have some runs a little over the 100m mark and read that I might need the PoE+ functionality.

Blue Iris - Bought through IPCT - $58

IPC-HFW2231T-ZS -Amazon from EmpireTech - $130

Reolink RLC-410 - Amazon - $43
Had to see for myself how this would perform/hold up.

JOOAN 703ERC-T-P - Amazon - $39 ( Not counted towards final value)
Bought 6/2016 - Wanted to dabble in IP cameras but I never got much further than testing functionality. Will try and use it with BI. Anyone know if this camera presents a security risk?

Already owned RJ45 connectors and crimp tool. Already owned Asus RT-N66 router.

Total initial project cost - $551
Additional costs to come. (Estimating 8 cameras total and additional ethernet cable) - ~$850

The majority of the system will probably consist of the (starlight, darkfighter, night eye) cameras.
 

bp2008

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That looks like a solid start. The cheaper cameras will of course be a gamble in terms of their quality and reliability, but if they don't work great, well at least you didn't spend much and you can always shift them to less important spots as you get better cams. That is what I always did.

Any camera is a security risk if it is accessible from the internet. Turn off UPnP as advised here: How to Secure Your Network (Don't Get Hacked!) | IP Cam Talk

Many of us simply forward a port to Blue Iris's web server for convenience, but the most secure option is to run a VPN server and have that be the only publicly accessible port on your router.

Many cameras also make outbound connections for unknown reasons, so it is common practice to prevent them having internet access at all, either by having a separate camera network with no internet access, or by using the router's firewall/parental control features to block certain IP or MAC addresses from accessing the internet. That is what I do. To keep the camera clocks synchronized, run a time server on your Blue Iris server and point the cameras at that. NetTime - Network Time Synchronization Tool
 
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