BI on older pc and switches, is it better to use a GB switch?

[Luk Van der Velpen]

Hi to all.
On this moment I am working out a video system for my company. I use an older panel pc (win XP, intel core duo T7500 at 2.2Ghz. Connected are (now) 6 dlink ip camera's (5020L) and there will be added 4 - 6 camera's extra. 8 camera's will be connected on one switch which again is connected to a second switch where all lan traffic passes, 2 other will be on a lan which is wireless bridged (2 ENH-202) between the buildings and from ther to the second switch.
CPU use of the panel pc, according to windows is at 55-65%, BI cpu usage at 30-35% with 6 cameras.
Lan usage (with one cable) is, according to windows, about 15-20% (with 1 or 2 lan ports used, no difference, only one port is at 20%, other at 0%). Both lan ports are GB ports.
Would it be a good idea to put a GB switch, now is a 100mb switch used.
Since this panel pc has 2 Lan connections (2 cards) and also a wireless connection (can also be used because wifi is also running where the panel pc is), is it better to connect 2 cables? They have differente ip's.
I also want to view the html page remotely for viewing the cameras on differente places (on the lan mostly, sometimes on my smartphone).
I could use some advice to get the best of this.
On this moment I am running the demo Blue Iris but will surely buy the full version. I am not sure weather to put BI on this panel pc AND on a different pc, the panel pc stays online 24/7, other computers can be put to sleep. I like the idea of using this panel pc because i had it already, is stable, and easy to attach to the wall. The only minus was I had to connect a keyboard and mouse, the touch panel is difficult for writing text with the on screen keyboard. The panel pc will only be used for video monitoring, maybe I can switch off some windows components that use cpu or lan resources to make the cpu load or lan load less?
Is it possible to use one lan port for the input of the cameras and the other one for the output to connect to other computers? Right now it seems only one port is used, I don't know if it would be possible to connect one switch to one lan port, without DHCP and the other one to the lan which connects to the internet, since this would be possible with this panel pc. This would not be possible for all cameras but for most of them.
Thanks for reading and for all the help!

 

[SantiagoDraco]

Definitely don't connect 2 cables from the PC to the switch. Only use 1. That is unless you have a specific use case for using the second LAN port (ie LAN segmentation).

You could use one port for the camera network and another for the LAN itself with the PC acting as the NVR for NVR access but isolating the cameras from the rest of the LAN. Keep in mind however that this would make it more difficult to access the cameras themselves from other PCs on the network if you needed to manage them (unless you accounted for this).

In this type of configuration you'd likely have no ability to access the cameras remotely other than through the NVR PC itself. Which probably isn't a bad thing (but others here have a lot more experience with NVR access than I do and may have other opinions).

 

[Luk Van der Velpen]

Why don't connect the 2 cables? I did this now and it doesn't do any harm. They have each their own ip adres (static).

If I use one port for the camera's only it is no problem to acces them because the 2 switches are about 1m next to eachother. Simply put a cable between the 2 switches and go. Or manage the cameras from the panel pc. This panel pc would not act as an NVR because I only want to save the recordings when motion detected and I save this directly on the NAS (which is wireless connected here because in another building). The wireless connection is a ENH 202 and gives about 40Mbps connection, pretty fast.

 

[SantiagoDraco]

Well, I made that comment (about not connecting two cables) based on the assumption you were not segmenting them into different subnets. Since you are, and as I stated later in my post, that's fine. Also I was referring to connecting two cables on the same IP range/subnet to the same switch. Connecting them to different physical networks is certainly ok assuming you have enough network knowledge to setup whatever you are trying to achieve successfully

 

[awahl101]

40 MB/s read/write to your nas over a wireless link? Must be a 5ghz ac bridge?

Edit* just looked its a wireless n bridge. Test your read/ write speeds to that and see what you get.


I would probably run a local hdd in that pc if possible for recording then have the nas used for archiving or a mirror of the recording drive.


You really should install a fresh os on a new drive for reliability purposes and have it be bare bones for blue iris


Sent from my SM-J727P using Tapatalk

 

[Luk Van der Velpen]

@awahl101 , thanx for your reply. When I run a speedtest on my desktop computer in the office in this building I usually get a downstream of 38 - 45 Mbps. So this speed looks pretty accurate. The distance between the two antenna's is just 25m and they are designed for long distance, so in this case it was just because there is no possibility to put a cable between the buildings. Works fine!

I have put the new recordings on the hard drive of this panel pc now, works much better when motion is detected. Every day at night I move the files to the NAS.

I was thinking about installing a fesh os but I was looking for linux, no possibility to run BI under Linux? And what would be the difference between running BI as a service? And maybe do the viewing on the webserver with UI3? I use this on my laptop or Ipad, works fine! As long as the cpu manages to control all camera's I don't see a reason to change the way I am using BI because the panel pc is only used for the camera's. That is why I was thinking about putting the camera's on a different network from everything else. I just have to check how to do this, with or without a router since all camera's have fixed IP's and I have 2 Lan ports on the panel pc as well as a wireless connection.