Storage configuration

Paulieboy

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I have a new security system with a 4 terabyte HHD and a 256 gigabyte M.2 SSD. What would be the best storage configuration for this setup? Can I keep the OS and BI together on the M.2 and use the HDD for both new and stored footage or CAN and should I keep new footage on the M.2? Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you
 

TonyR

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Assuming you are talking about your BI "surveillance" system, you should have only Windows, the BI program and BI "db" folder on the SSD and all video clips on the HDD, which is hopefully surveillance-rated (such as a WD Purple).

Be sure to do this as well ==>> Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage
 
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sebastiantombs

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^^^ What TonyR said. Plus, there is no reason to have a new and stored folder. Allocate about 90% of the 4TB drive to new and leave everything there. Set the limit based strictly on space and not time, days, at all. Blue Iris will handle things very nicely for you. If you find something you need to preserve simply export a clip onto a thumb drive or other media. If you haven't already started using that 4TB, format it with a block size of 1024 rather than accepting just the default block size to make file management for the drive, itself, easier.
 

SouthernYankee

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My Standard allocation post.

1) Do not use time (limit clip age)to determine when BI video files are moved or deleted, only use space. Using time wastes disk space.
2) If New and stored are on the same disk drive do not used stored, set the stored size to zero, set the new folder to delete, not move. All it does is waste CPU time and increase the number of disk writes. You can leave the stored folder on the drive just do not use it.
3) Never allocate over 90% of the total disk drive to BI.
4) if using continuous recording on the BI camera settings, record tab, set the combine and cut video to 1 hour or 3 GB. Really big files are difficult to transfer.
5) it is recommend to NOT store video on an SSD (the C: drive).
6) Do not run the disk defragmenter on the video storage disk drives.
7) Do not run virus scanners on BI folders
8) an alternate way to allocate space on multiple drives is to assign different cameras to different drives, so there is no file movement between new and stored.
9) Never use an External USB drive for the NEW folder. Never use a network drive for the NEW folder.


Advanced storage:
If you are using a complete disk for large video file storage (BVR) continuous recording, I recommend formatting the disk, with a windows cluster size of 1024K (1 Megabyte). This is a increase from the 4K default. This will reduce the physical number of disk write, decrease the disk fragmentation, speed up access.
Hint:
On the Blue iris status (lighting bolt graph) clip storage tab, if there is any red on the bars you have a allocation problem. If there is no Green, you have no free space, this is bad.
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Lawnboy1

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Assuming you are talking about your BI "surveillance" system, you should have only Windows, the BI program and BI "db" folder on the SSD and all video clips on the HDD, which is hopefully surveillance-rated (such as a WD Purple).

Be sure to do this as well ==>> Optimizing Blue Iris's CPU Usage
Yeah, I have two 2TB WD Purple HDDs. One is for recording and the other is for storing clips. The WD Blue serves no purpose and will be removed once my new 4U chassis arrives. I have a 250Gig SSD for Windows 10 and Blue Iris only. That's all I have on the machine.
IMG_20211113_171025.jpg
 

sebastiantombs

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Once again, don't used new and stored, moving files between drives. It serves no real purpose at all. Store everything in New and base the deletion of files on space, not time. With two drives, you duplicate the directory structure on both drives and assign half of your cameras to one drive and half to the other drive. Moving files from disk to disk creates both un-needed disk read/writes and loads the CPU to move files pointlessly. Blue Iris is fussy about the directory structure and wants to see :\Blue Iris\New, :\Blue Iris\Alerts and :\Blue Iris\Stored. You can rename the AUX directories to whatever you might want simply by right clicking on them in the allocation tab and typing in a new name, but New, Stored and Alerts are cast in stone.
 
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(Almost) everything you need to know is right here, below...start reading where SouthernYankee posts screenshots. And don't read anything into my post on Feb.10th, it may confuse you.

 
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Yeah, I have two 2TB WD Purple HDDs. One is for recording and the other is for storing clips.
If you decide to NOT take @sebastiantombs recommendation RE 'new and stored', which I think would be a mistake, then there is no reason to use a purple for stored. Use the blue and run the second purple for recording also. Divide up your cams between the two purple drives. Define the second as 'New2'.
 
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With apologies for reviving an old thread, are the storage principles described here still up to date for BI 5?

I have 6 cameras, 4 running at 5mp 15fps, 2 at 2mp 15fps.

My BI PC has a 256GB NVME SSD for Windows (C:) and BI5 and a 6TB surveillance drive for footage (D:).

Below is what I gather the storage setting should be; please correct me if I'm wrong.

Database:

1698936634885.png

New & Stored


  • As SouthernYankee mentioned - both New and Stored are on the same Disk (D:) - therefore, I won't use Stored. I understand this is done by selecting the Limit Size as 0
  • For New, I am allocating 4600GB (about 85% of the usable 5450GB D: drive size).
  • For both New and Stored, I am unticking "Limit clip age"
1698937174632.png. 1698937203209.png

Alerts

  • I don't understand (yet) how these work - I need to set up alerts for each camera by drawing alert zones, times, etc.... Do I set zones and times in BI or individually in each camera's web interface?
  • I allocated 5% of the D: drive to alerts (272.5GB) - this will keep the whole recording allocation for the D: drive to 90%, as SouthernYankee mentioned
1698937562419.png

*For Alerts, I'm also thinking of subscribing to IPCT+ - I assume this is the purpose of the cloud storage, to see and save/backup alerts. Please let me know if I'm mistaken.

Other Settings:

* I assume I should leave the below unchanged, as default BI knows best
1698937668855.png

Many thanks for any corrections/observations, and apologies if I hijacked someone else's thread. I can repost this as a new thread if need be.
 
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