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cjowers

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I am currently running BI on a dell T3500 (xeon W3520 CPU, 12GB, old GPU) from 2010 or so. it is fine for normal running / storage (5 x 4MP cameras), but it gets annoying when I'm trying to view past footage, as it can take so long to open and view what I need to. Some of my alert folders have ALOT of images and take a long time to open/navigate (but maybe that is a limitation of the surveillance HDD that I cant avoid?). I have a custom AI setup, so images get passed around temporarily folders, processed, maybe saved, etc, a method I would like to keep using.

I have the ability to repurpose a separate home PC (AMD ryzen 5 1600, 16GB, RX570 gpu) from 2017 or so, but it would require data migration/backups, and I am wondering if it would be worth the trouble / if I would see a noticeable increase in performance?

As far as I can tell, neither CPU allows BI to utilize the intel hardware acceleration (QuickSync is it?), but the newer one should allow me to transition through folders/images/videos faster, especially if I can use the SSD for certain things. Both PCs would use a 3TB WD purple for video capture storage.

Any thoughts or experiences would be greatly appreciated. I also have a newer i7 laptop, but I think using it for BI would be a waste due to the cooling limitations and fancy display/mobility not being needed.
 
Flintstone61

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cjowers

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Flintstone61 said:
View attachment 161569
Click to expand...
Thanks, Sounds similar to you HP Elitedesk 800 chip (mine is actually in SFF too). Are you pretty happy with it's i5-8500? Any issues?

If I went ahead with the swap, would you recommend that I store any images to an SSD instead of the HDD purple?
I would have ~50,000 images at any given time of the previous 7 days (<50GB / day), that I would like to quickly transverse. I probably need to figure out how to divide these into different folders (per day?) so that file explorer can manage.
 
fenderman

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cjowers said:
Thanks, Sounds similar to you HP Elitedesk 800 chip (mine is actually in SFF too). Are you pretty happy with it's i5-8500? Any issues?

If I went ahead with the swap, would you recommend that I store any images to an SSD instead of the HDD purple?
I would have ~50,000 images at any given time of the previous 7 days (<50GB / day), that I would like to quickly transverse. I probably need to figure out how to divide these into different folders (per day?) so that file explorer can manage.
Click to expand...
50k images over 7 days? Why are you storing so many image files rather than video? That is the essence of your problem..aside from the very weak xeon..
 
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cjowers

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fenderman said:
50k images over 7 days? Why are you storing so many image files rather than video? That is the essence of your problem..aside from the very weak xeon..
Click to expand...
yes, having so many files is not ideal for performance, and probably a bad example here. And I actually have ~6 months of images stored! , but I was thinking of cutting this down. This is in addition to storing videos.

I am doing this since I can only store a couple weeks of videos, but I can store months and months of processed alert images without using hardly any storage space (maybe 20% of my drive is images, covering every single significant event (millions?) over last 6 months). This includes all LPR plate captures for instance. It is just the handling of them that is annoying, if I need them - I might know the exact files I want to view (due to file timestamps), but getting file explorer to open them is slowww since there are so many in one folder. However it doesn't seem to affect BI performance (BI only manages / deletes from those folders, doesn't view), but I have issues navigating the specific folder they are in using Windows file explorer. I will try and divide up the folders by individual cameras, and shorten the storage duration next time, and see if that helps.

You are correct that for 7 days worth I should just use BI videos to review, and these 7 days would be the same images that BI uses for alert review (so not doubling up at least).

Aside from replacing the weak xeon, would an SSD be useful to drop the images on?

thanks
 
saltwater

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Can you off-load those image files to another computer or an external harddrive, thus freeing up you BI harddrive. That will at least give you some extra space on the BI harddrive, not sure if you get an extra day of recording, but I would think having an extra day of recording is more important that 6-month old image files. I doubt this would improve performance of your system overall, but as someone mentioned, getting a CPU 7 years newer couldn't hurt. As regards Quick Sync, I'm not sure that's overly relevant these days due to the use of sub-streams, having said that, I stand to be corrected.
 
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cjowers

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Is it correct that I shouldn't need to worry about SSD durability (since the files are so small, I won't ever reach the write limits of the SSD drive? which seem to be a 'TBW' rating, and not a '# of writes' rating)?

Whereas for video writes (large data) it is better to stick with a surveillance drive (higher TBW rating)?
 
Flintstone61

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You need some big Terabyte Surveillance drives.
it's really the best investment.
then save clips not jpegs.
Clips can always be reviewed and jpegs can be parsed if the Police or somebody needs it.
I was mistaken in my assumption that I needed to save a 2-3 jpegs along with the motion event.
It wasn't good for performance or for organization in my experience.
Once i got a good processor and a couple good WD drives, performance soared.
over the Optiplex with the 3rd gen i7 intel chip, and a Janky WD 6TB refurb that might been %50 of the trouble.
 
Flintstone61

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cjowers said:
Thanks, Sounds similar to you HP Elitedesk 800 chip (mine is actually in SFF too). Are you pretty happy with it's i5-8500? Any issues?

If I went ahead with the swap, would you recommend that I store any images to an SSD instead of the HDD purple?
I would have ~50,000 images at any given time of the previous 7 days (<50GB / day), that I would like to quickly transverse. I probably need to figure out how to divide these into different folders (per day?) so that file explorer can manage.
Click to expand...
i5-8500 is the sweet spot in used Office equipment filtering thru ebay and other channels...you get w11 capable boxes, with ddr4 ram and a Pro license embedded. for like $175-275 depending on whats included.
Mine runs 19 or 20 ( cant rememeber now) at the Condo, Havent been there in 6-8 weeks. no faults whatsoever.
I would get away from the notion of saving 6 months of Jpegs ....even if its Wicked Weasel/ Microminimus bikini models passing by the front door on the way to the Brunswick Heads Main Beach...lol........
 
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cjowers

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Flintstone61 said:
You need some big Terabyte Surveillance drives.
Click to expand...
big like 8TB, or big like 18TB? And drives? with an 's'?

Maybe I could start with 1 x 14TB. Seems like the price/TB has hardly gone down in the last 5 years....
 
samplenhold

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cjowers said:
Is it correct that I shouldn't need to worry about SSD durability (since the files are so small, I won't ever reach the write limits of the SSD drive? which seem to be a 'TBW' rating, and not a '# of writes' rating)?

Whereas for video writes (large data) it is better to stick with a surveillance drive (higher TBW rating)?
Click to expand...
Yes and yes.
cjowers said:
big like 8TB, or big like 18TB? And drives? with an 's'?

Maybe I could start with 1 x 14TB. Seems like the price/TB has hardly gone down in the last 5 years....
Click to expand...
It all depends on how many cams you have and how long you want the video to stay on the drive(s).

I have 22 cams writing 24/7 to three 10TB drives. This gives me about two weeks of stored video.
 
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cjowers

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Just an update for any future readers -

I moved over to the new PC, and it is going fairly well.
-the CPU is plenty to handle it streams, motion, AI, etc.
-the itx form factor is fine with cooling (i just bumped the input fan speed curve slightly to be sure)
-the 18TB hard drive holds plenty of videos, so i am not so concerned with storing extra jpegs
-the 120GB ssd holds temporary alert images (which are greatly cut down in number using AI confirmations)
-I was able to bump resolution and bitrate and keep h264 encoding on all my cams with the extra headroom, so everything is a bit better overall.

the only things I didn't realize:
-Installing Blue Iris on a new PC will put you back in a trial evaluation version if you are installing a version newer than 1 year after your software purchase. there are some decent upgrades since my purchase so i'll be shelling out for the extended support package or whatever it is that will clear the watermarks.
-my 580 GPU doesn't work with the CodeProject AI at this stage, or for any recording hardware acceleration, so it is pretty much wasted. I'll need to look at getting an NVidia GPU I guess if I want to utilize more AI in the future.


thanks for everyone's help and suggestions.
 
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