Blue Iris design considerations - 26+ camera system

[jschlatter]

New to the forum and hoping for some help.

Currently planning a design of a 26 camera installation with a mix of 22- 5 MP (32Kbps～8Mbps) and 4 - 8 MP (32 Kbps — 16 Mbps) resolutions to replace an older analog/IP hybrid system. Considering Blue Iris, but have concerns about it being able to keep up with them all.

I am curious to know what potential configuration options when using Blue Iris. I have read through the more advanced optimization settings like direct to disk and such but have yet to see anything for more advanced configuration. Currently considering using a brand new I9 based PC with no less than 16 GB of RAM. I have seen posts saying differing thoughts on GPU. Any value in having with with a system of this size?

For example is there any support for or benefit in using multiple LAN connections in order to scale network throughput? I have ample network switch ports, but it seems to me that there is a potential for overloading a single 1 Gb LAN connection with this number of higher resolution cameras. Does that make sense or am I just being paranoid?

Also wondering about disk/storage considerations. The request is to be able to store 60 days of recordings. Thought of using one or two USB-C external drive enclosures with the 10 TB WD Purple drives (no RAID) for the more recent footage. The plan would be to spread the cameras across the drives while making sure the most active cameras are not grouped together on single drives. Based on the storage calculations I have, I may also need to consider archiving to other disks as well. Is that worth considering or do I just need to make sure I purchase enough of the 10 TB drives for all storage needed. (roughly 8-10 drives).

Any other items that I should be considering to ensure I don't hit a wall as I implement? Any thoughts/advice is appreciated

 

[looney2ns]

Read the Wiki, all of it.
Plus See attachment.

 

[jschlatter]

yeah, I already did that which is why I asked the questions I did. Seems this is the wrong place to ask for information so I will just move along....

 

[fenderman]

yeah, I already did that which is why I asked the questions I did. Seems this is the wrong place to ask for information so I will just move along....

Yes, particularly if you are an ungrateful prick. Move along and let the door hit you on the way out.

 

[crw030]

Currently planning a design of a 26 camera installation with a mix of 22- 5 MP (32Kbps～8Mbps) and 4 - 8 MP (32 Kbps — 16 Mbps) resolutions to replace an older analog/IP hybrid system. Considering Blue Iris, but have concerns about it being able to keep up with them all.

You will need to use the new sub-stream feature in the more recent releases of Blue Iris v5 or a more commercial approach.

I am curious to know what potential configuration options when using Blue Iris. I have read through the more advanced optimization settings like direct to disk and such but have yet to see anything for more advanced configuration. Currently considering using a brand new I9 based PC with no less than 16 GB of RAM. I have seen posts saying differing thoughts on GPU. Any value in having with with a system of this size?

See my Finally Completed - New EPYC build & Limit Test - (Extremely Unnecessary Builds) thread. To manage CPU usage, a modern GPU was required imho, and the power tradeoff is probably not worth it for 24x7 when you can simply use direct-to-disk & sub-streams to avoid most of the resource demand in the first place.

For example is there any support for or benefit in using multiple LAN connections in order to scale network throughput? I have ample network switch ports, but it seems to me that there is a potential for overloading a single 1 Gb LAN connection with this number of higher resolution cameras. Does that make sense or am I just being paranoid?

I got up to 53 hi-rez camera feeds and although I used 2 separate NICs connected to camera switches it wasn't because I had maxed out a 1GbE connection (but I was getting close). With a high number of cameras, it might be nice simply to share the load between multiple switches & NICs.

Also wondering about disk/storage considerations. The request is to be able to store 60 days of recordings. Thought of using one or two USB-C external drive enclosures with the 10 TB WD Purple drives (no RAID) for the more recent footage. The plan would be to spread the cameras across the drives while making sure the most active cameras are not grouped together on single drives. Based on the storage calculations I have, I may also need to consider archiving to other disks as well. Is that worth considering or do I just need to make sure I purchase enough of the 10 TB drives for all storage needed. (roughly 8-10 drives).

Evaluate whether 60 days is really necessary, if you will know something happened within 7 days why keep around 2 months of video? Regardless you might want to look at "shucking" WD Easystore style drives, or using other tricks that data hoarders do to get cheap high capacity storage. In my 53 camera test, I just assigned cameras round-robin to each of 3 disks, and those drives were operating at under 20% utilization, so it mostly becomes a calculation of days * space required per day (more for active periods).

Any other items that I should be considering to ensure I don't hit a wall as I implement? Any thoughts/advice is appreciated

Even though my test was exploring AMD EPYC, I wouldn't recommend that or some extreme i9 build. I'd consider just running multiple desktop systems instead of a gigantic single system for a big camera load.

 

[JayBart]

Evaluate whether 60 days is really necessary, if you will know something happened within 7 days why keep around 2 months of video? Regardless you might want to look at "shucking" WD Easystore style drives, or using other tricks that data hoarders do to get cheap high capacity storage. In my 53 camera test, I just assigned cameras round-robin to each of 3 disks, and those drives were operating at under 20% utilization, so it mostly becomes a calculation of days * space required per day (more for active periods).

0 days does seem excessive

Could also keep first 7-14 days local, then offload to a cloud service.