Will this Intel NUC Support BI?

Dorsey Pender

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fenderman

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Intel® NUC Kit NUC8i3BEK


I have two of these and I can get a 4TB drive for it on Amazon and I am trying to reduce power footprint on the computer that is running BI now.
This is a slow 5 year old processor. Modern pc's with full desktop processors are very efficient. You would not be saving much if anything over an i5-12500 that is at least 5 times as powerful..
No one can tell you if any processor will be sufficient..that depends on your particular load.
 

bp2008

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If you really want a mini PC, go with something with at least 10000 CPU Mark on cpubenchmark.net. The i3-8109U is only 4248 which is far below recommended.

One inexpensive example is the AMD Ryzen 5 5600U which scores 15483 and can be found for around $200 US in a complete system: Amazon.com : ryzen 5 mini pc

But be aware it may be loud due to the fan, and don't expect ANY support from the manufacturer of random chinese mini PCs. If it dies after Amazon's return window, you're basically screwed. Find one with a SATA port for a 2.5" SSD or HDD.

Also I would personally recommend against those with a 2.5 Gbps ethernet port. I have one where the 2.5 Gbps ethernet port is very flaky. I'd trust a 1 Gbps port more since they are a lot more mature.
 
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fenderman

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Thanks everyone. I will buy a barebones i5 NUC and add memory and a 4TB SSD.
i5? you are missing the point...i5 means nothing..there are 13 different generations of i5 and 50+ variants ....each with very different levels of performance ...
you are also wasting you money on the nuc vs a full size system...you will not save any significant amount of power and are limiting your local storage capabilities....not to mention making it really easy to walk away with...
 

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Starglow

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i5? you are missing the point...i5 means nothing..there are 13 different generations of i5 and 50+ variants ....each with very different levels of performance ...
you are also wasting you money on the nuc vs a full size system...you will not save any significant amount of power and are limiting your local storage capabilities....not to mention making it really easy to walk away with...
My NUC currently has about 10TB of storage and could go higher if I wanted....so that's nothing to sneeze at. The NUC is a great little mini PC, but it's just expensive. My main storage right now is the NVR since I abandoned using BI.
 

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My NUC currently has about 10TB of storage and could go higher if I wanted....so that's nothing to sneeze at. The NUC is a great little mini PC, but it's just expensive. My main storage right now is the NVR since I abandoned using BI.
There's a misconception that it saves a significant amount of power it does not... There is no room for 3.5 drives so you are paying a premium for SSD or 2.5 drives.
 

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CanCuba

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My NUC currently has about 10TB of storage and could go higher if I wanted....so that's nothing to sneeze at. The NUC is a great little mini PC, but it's just expensive. My main storage right now is the NVR since I abandoned using BI.
I replaced the fans on my NVR with Noctua fans. It's in our bedroom and the only things we hear is the air being moved. Definitely happy with a minimum investment.
 

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Yes an overpriced underperformer. You cannot hear the fan noise on a modern PC unless you put your ear to it... Or it's overheating or running at 100%...
To each his own but the NUC suits me just fine...and as I said earlier, I have no extra space for a regular size PC. :)
 

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To each his own but the NUC suits me just fine...and as I said earlier, I have no extra space for a regular size PC. :)
It is a very limiting factor particularly with Blue Iris as noted both for the storage purposes and because it underperforms... The performance of the processor is extremely important when using server based AI at least until the coral projects and similar are worked out...
Space is not an issue for 99.99% of folks. We're not talking about a large Tower we're talking about a small form factor PC. It doesn't have to go into a particular box or case in your closet.
 

Rob Hopper

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fenderman

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I'm using a machine similar to this: , but with an i7-11390H. 16Gb RAM, with 5Tb inside that tiny box (could have 12Tb or more) plus 4Tb external for archive clips. Running 12 cameras now plus LPR, and CPU is typically under 15%. Not bad for a sub $400 PC (well it was on sale...). Blue Iris with substreams is crazy good.
You will have problems with an external drive. You are running under 15 when lpr or ai is not being analyzed. These is insignificant power savings - which is the entire end game of the op. Why limit yourself while overpaying for a slower box?
There is also only room for a single 2.5 hdd - again limiting your options and sizes as well as paying more. The second drive has to be an m.2 ssd which again will limit size and will increase costs.
My point is that unless there is a very specific reason to use a nuc its not ideal. The op does not have an issue with space.
 
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Rob Hopper

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You will have problems with an external drive. You are running under 15 when lpr or ai is not being analyzed. These is insignificant power savings - which is the entire end game of the op. Why limit yourself while overpaying for a slower box?
There is also only room for a single 2.5 hdd - again limiting your options and sizes as well as paying more. The second drive has to be an m.2 ssd which again will limit size and will increase costs.
My point is that unless there is a very specific reason to use a nuc its not ideal. The op does not have an issue with space.
I'm only using the external drive for archive purposes, and not real-time recording. I could just as easily be using my NAS (very cheap) storage for that and still have no performance penalty. I'm never seeing spikes over 25% on CPU for lpr/ai (but to be fair, I only have two LPR cameras active). I agree that there are other options, but I switched from a 125+ watt solution and noisy fans to a 45 watt solution and got a 4x performance boost (with future-proofing headroom), so it works for me (and power savings was the objective of the OP--it's more difficult to get that power savings with bigger box fans). But I absolutely agree with the earlier comments as well--there is no "perfect" solution--everybody's use and needs are different. I just know that when I made the change, there was little-to-no information here about the use of NUC's and Mini-PC's with Blue Iris, so I had to make a bit of a leap of faith to get there, and that "journey" is part of what makes all this fun.
 

fenderman

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I'm only using the external drive for archive purposes, and not real-time recording. I could just as easily be using my NAS (very cheap) storage for that and still have no performance penalty. I'm never seeing spikes over 25% on CPU for lpr/ai (but to be fair, I only have two LPR cameras active). I agree that there are other options, but I switched from a 125+ watt solution and noisy fans to a 45 watt solution and got a 4x performance boost (with future-proofing headroom), so it works for me (and power savings was the objective of the OP--it's more difficult to get that power savings with bigger box fans). But I absolutely agree with the earlier comments as well--there is no "perfect" solution--everybody's use and needs are different. I just know that when I made the change, there was little-to-no information here about the use of NUC's and Mini-PC's with Blue Iris, so I had to make a bit of a leap of faith to get there, and that "journey" is part of what makes all this fun.
You make a very common error with respect to power consumption. Power consumption is not measured by the processors TDP. I have an old thread on this with the 4th gen intel i5's (see below). That was 8 years ago. Even back then they were idling at 10w - 15w or so. A modern intel pc with integrated video idles at 10-20W. At 25% cpu you are looking at 15-25w... They also are virtually silent with no loud fans unless you are at 100 percent and taxing the system.

If there is an issue with the external drive blue iris will not be able to move old files to it and may crash or fail to record. Same issue with nas...AI person detection with decent accuracy will spike your system well above 25% and more so with multiple cameras triggering simultaneously.

 
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