Pc for blue iris and I've read the wiki

J

jon1371usmc

n3wb
Jan 4, 2019
14
0
Tennessee
I've read the wiki for choosing a pc for a dedicated bi server. 6th gen intel i5 or i7, 8gb of mem, win8 or higher, standard Intel video card, no dedicated graphic card etc. Seen recommendations for an hp elitedesk or dell optiplex, refurbished with 3yr warranty. People mention finding good systems on ebay or dell outlet, but I'm having a hard time finding any decent deals, and with so many options available between different models, it can become overwhelming and gets my anxiety up.

I had originally bought a nas and two 4tb seagate ironwolf nas 3.5" sata drives to run as my nvr and use the surveillance station software but have since returned the nas, so I would like to be able to utilize those drives I have to net me 8tb or storage.

Looking at a dell optiplex 7050 i7-7700 but it only has the ability to run a 3.5" hdd and two 2.5" hdd/ssd per my research of the device, not to mention it is close to $600 and I will need to up the ram from 4 to at least 8gb and current storage isnt enough. So I'm not sure running one of the existing 3.5hdd I have now in 4tb will be enough and from what I've read, use of an external hard drive is not recommended although not sure why?

I'm also looking at a couple 3060 mini towers, one is a i5-8400 ($626) which needs storage upgrades, and the other is a i5-8500 ($520) which needs ram and storage upgrades.

So what are my options for expanded internal storage outside of buying a single $300 dollar 8/10tb hdd ? Anyone have any experience with these models? Anyone have a link to a good pc that would be a good option and a good price. I'm not a computer guy. I dont know how to build a pc and I'm just not familiar with the inner workings of a pc. I'm having to learn everything as I go. Any help will be appreciated.
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The deals exist on Ebay. You just need to be patient and setup a search to watch.
Usually it's the "new listings" that are the best deals.
I just bought an I7-7700 Optiplex SFF 5050 8gb ram, 500mb HD, win10 pro, and 26 months left on factory warranty for $389 shipped.
Looked brand new on arrival.

You don't say what you expect your load to be, but this would work for most folks.
HP ProDesk 600 G2 Desktop Quad Core i5-6500 3.2GHz 8GB 500GB w/ WiFi Win 10 | eBay
Room for 2 5.25 drives.
 
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Load will be 6-8 dahua 2mp star lights outside along with maybe 1 or 2 4k outside as well. Then at least 3 more interior cams, unknown what mp cameras I'd be using. I'd like to be able to able to run the highest frame rate as possible without overloading the system and storage, so around 15fps if possible and was about max from what I've read people recommending.

I travel for 3weeks of the month so I need to be able to store all the footage while I'm away. Not sure if I'll do 24/7 or just motion activated. Do the dell mini towers or sff pcs allow for hdd expansion?
 
A good guess on the Megapixels per second at 15FPS would be about for the cameras specified would be 530 mp/sec.
Look at the stat page to determine a cpu. do not use only one data point to assume it is correct.

Blue Iris Update Helper


Remember that 2 4k cameras require as much space as 8 2mp cameras.
 
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jon1371usmc said:
So do any of the sff or mini Towers have room for hdd expansion, specifically 3.5" SATA hdd?
Click to expand...
Most of the mini towers do, sff/usff may not. It's best to just find the documentation on the dell support website and check. You could also remove the optical drive and put a another 3.5" drive in it's place on a machine with one.

Check the coupons page on Dell outlet frequently the next few days.
 
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I have 2 systems
1 Dell optiplex 3020 SFF w/ Intel i5 4570 Haswell (I paid $ 225.00 Ebay 2 years ago it had only been in service about 1 year prior)
1 HP HP EliteDesk 800 G2 SFF w/intel i5 6600T Skylake ( I paid $ 195.00 Sept 2018 it only was in use 9 months from previous owner)

Both windows 10 Pro with SSD as Primary Drive.
The Dell Optiplex is tight on adding additional hard drive You will have to do some modifications.
The HP Elitedesk 800 G2 has room for extra hard drive, Plus the Processor only uses 35 watts of Power (Silent)

Don't go any smaller than SFF and if it's a Dell then I suggest a tower for expansion with hard drives.

between the 2 the HP Elitedesk 800 G2 is the winner for me. (so much in that I purchased another one and have set it up for my HTPC running Kodi.)

Keep an eye on Ebay don't be in a rush there are good units out there at decent cost.
 
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looney2ns said:
And don't purchase one with a T processor. They are lower powered.
The one I linked to above, has room for 2 drives.
Click to expand...
The Acer I linked has a bunch of T's in the model number but doesn't have a T processor.
ark.intel.com and cpubenchmark.net are good places to check when evaluating processors.

I'm not certain how many 3.5" bays that acer machine has.
 
But how many hdds can you add to a sff or mini tower. How many SATA ports do they have. Will I have to remove the optical drive to be able to add a second 3.5" drive.

Seemed I watched one YouTube video where a guy had a hp elitedesk g1 sff with ssd and when he wanted to add an additional 3.5" hdd, he had to take the power and SATA cable from the optical drive just to be able to plug it in as there were no extra ports. I'm guessing he could remove the ssd and replace with a 3.5" and also delete the optical drive and run the extra 3.5 there, but then he loses the ssd.

I would love to be able to find a pc that comes with the ssd for booting up and running the bi software and room for 2 additional 3.5 bays for storage. I have 2 4tb nas drives that I want to be able to utilize as I've already spent $250 on them.

Im pretty much computer illiterate and I'm learning as I go. I just dont want to buy a pc and then be limited on how much storage I can add, and then I will have to fork out over $300 more for an 8/10tb hard drive.

Also, from reading the wiki, I should avoid any pcs that come with a graphics card and look for one that has built in intel on board graphics because they can be difficult to get quick sync to run properly? Is this still the case?

But I read about people using them with nvidia cuda and decoding video, some people I seen recommend if your viewing to a 4k monitor. It's getting confusing
 
You don't have to remove the optical drive if that pc even has a drive... It's 2019 you don't need an optical drive...
 
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The micro center PC is double the price... For that kind of money you can have an i9 would you likely don't even need.. it's pointless to over buy.. depending on your load you may only need a $100 system
 
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