moving clip storage to second partition, and DB?

[piconut]

I currently have Blue Iris v4.0.4.3 x64 and I have all the video clips and the database saved to the C drive (default settings). I would like to partition the single hard drive in the computer and then move the clip storage to the second partition. The reason that I want to do this is that I image the drive on a weekly basis and I would like to image it without all those video clips taking up so much space. If I could put them on another partition then my main C drive would be small and it would keep the drive images small too but I don't want to take a hit on performance. Right now with seven 3 MP IP cameras, the computer (Win 7 Pro, i7, 32GB RAM, 2 TB HD) seems to be running very well with only about 30% CPU usage and no hiccups.

I have three questions:

1) will this have a negative or any impact on Blue Iris performance?
2) if I do this, should I also move the database or leave it on the C drive, or does it matter?
3) are there any other files I should move to the second partition?

 

[Zorac]

1)probably not noticable, but your seek times might be a bit higher
2)move c:\blueiris and all its subdireictories including the database, if you ever restored your image you want your databse to match your clips/storage. you can just delete it and rebuild it if you get in a jam, but you loose your alerts then (although the video for them will still show up, so doesn't really matter if your only recording on motion). you have to move it physically on the hard drives and within BI's settings.
3)nope

maybe consider a second hard drive instead? consumer drives don't last well under the loading BI gives them. cpu usage seems a little high unless your running of bunch of extras or not using direct to disk. its also a real pain to shrink an active partition to create the new partition.

 

[piconut]

maybe consider a second hard drive instead? consumer drives don't last well under the loading BI gives them. cpu usage seems a little high unless your running of bunch of extras or not using direct to disk. its also a real pain to shrink an active partition to create the new partition.

I thought about that but unfortunately the system is a small form factor (SFF) and only holds one 3.5" HD. It will hold two 2.5" laptop drives so I have thought about replacing the one hard drive with two smaller drives. I've also considered SSD drives but my understanding is that they do not hold up well over the long term if you are writing to them often and overwriting alot too. Any thoughts on SSD drives with Blue Iris?

 

[Zorac]

i have have my os (include the BI program) on an ssd and have BI set to do all its recording to a WD Red 4tb hard drive, it works well. Could always put another hard drive in an external case and connect with an external sata connector as your motherboard likely still has another sata connector. aliexpress is littered with esata cases. you could put the data on a ssd drive too, i was recently reading stress tests on the larger samsung ssds (500gb) and with my system recording 24/7 (roughly 25megapixels) i figured i would get roughly 10 years before it wore out. new ones are much better than they use to be. 0.5tb doesnt give me enough retention though so i went with the reds, depending on what you need, it may be fine.

 

[piconut]

Oh, good idea about setting up an esata drive. I think I may try that.

In your first reply you also mentioned the "direct to disk" feature. I'm currently not using that and am using the default of the BVR ...maybe that is why my CPU is higher than it should be? I read a little about that but I'm not sure I understand the advantages and disadvantages clearly. Here is what I think I understand (please correct me if I'm wrong).

using Direct to Disk:

• will not allow for text overlays unless the camera adds it
• does not allow you to view a recording while it is being recorded, but only after the clip has finished recording
• can only be used with H.264 streams in MP4 format
• is more efficient because it the CPU doesn't have to recompress the video (not sure about this?)

So should I try and switch to direct to disk to see how it affects my CPU utilization?

Thank you Zorac for your help. I'm new at IP security cameras and Blue Iris and I'm trying to read up as much as I can about it using the HELP file and the online forums, but some of it is still a bit foggy in my head.

 

[Zorac]

1) correct, most cameras allow an overlay of some sort though
2) depends on the format, bvr will let you view while its still recording, the other options will not
3) works with anything ive done, including h.264, mjpg, and jpeg
4) correct

I would, but in my case i don't get any value in re-encoding the video. video encoding is lossy so your loosing quality everytime you re-ecode, i always try and avoid it. you also don't have to worry about any of the BI encoding settings if your doing d2d. unless your trying to do fancy overlays for weather or something, or need a format other than bvr, i don't see the need. others may have a different option on this though.

 

[piconut]

I would, but in my case i don't get any value in re-encoding the video. video encoding is lossy so your loosing quality everytime you re-ecode, i always try and avoid it. you also don't have to worry about any of the BI encoding settings if your doing d2d. unless your trying to do fancy overlays for weather or something, or need a format other than bvr, i don't see the need. others may have a different option on this though.

I just realized that the direct to disk and BVR formats are not mutually exclusive. I was thinking they were. So do you use the Blue Iris DVR file format with your direct to disk settings, or do you use the MPEG-4 file format with Direct to Disk?

 

[Zorac]

bvr, i didn't know you could use d2d on the other formats, never tried as i want to be able to playback while they are still recording. probably limited to h.264 if your doing mp4 with d2d?

 

[piconut]

I'm wondering if anyone knows the if a Windows page file is needed if I store the Blue Iris BVR clips and DB on a second drive? My current setup is an SSD as my C drive with Blue Iris runninging on it and a system managed page file for that drive. But since I moved my BVR clips and DB storage to a second harddisk (non-SSD) drive and also using Direct to Disk recording, should I allow Windows to also manage a page file there or leave it with no page file on the second drive? I guess my question relates to how Blue Iris writes those files to a second drive and the value of having no pagefile on that second drive. Any information regarding this would be appreciated.

 

[fenderman]

I'm wondering if anyone knows the if a Windows page file is needed if I store the Blue Iris BVR clips and DB on a second drive? My current setup is an SSD as my C drive with Blue Iris runninging on it and a system managed page file for that drive. But since I moved my BVR clips and DB storage to a second harddisk (non-SSD) drive and also using Direct to Disk recording, should I allow Windows to also manage a page file there or leave it with no page file on the second drive? I guess my question relates to how Blue Iris writes those files to a second drive and the value of having no pagefile on that second drive. Any information regarding this would be appreciated.

The page file should always be on your SSD. I would leave a singe page file and not create one for each volume.
Also your database file should be on your SSD, its not a large file. From the help file:
"The database will be created by default at C:\BlueIris\db. This location may be altered on the Options/Clips page but should be set for your fastest local storage or SSD if available. "

 

[piconut]

I do have a pagefile on the C drive, but just wasn't sure if I should also allow Windows to create a pagefile on the D drive where I've got the clips stored. Currently I have the DB on the D drive too and it hasn't seemed to make any difference as far as the clips loading so is there another reason why I should move the DB back to the SSD C drive? I purposely moved the DB to D because I image the C drive on a regular basis and I thought in the event that I have to restore the image back to C, then if the DB was also on C, then there would be clips on D that have no corresponding DB entry because the DB would be wiped out on the image restore (and I'm only imaging the drive once a week). So effectively, while I would have the cips for the last week, the DB would not have any entries for the last week.

I'm just learning and appreciate your comments and thoughts.

 

[fenderman]

I do have a pagefile on the C drive, but just wasn't sure if I should also allow Windows to create a pagefile on the D drive where I've got the clips stored. Currently I have the DB on the D drive too and it hasn't seemed to make any difference as far as the clips loading so is there another reason why I should move the DB back to the SSD C drive? I purposely moved the DB to D because I image the C drive on a regular basis and I thought in the event that I have to restore the image back to C, then if the DB was also on C, then there would be clips on D that have no corresponding DB entry because the DB would be wiped out on the image restore (and I'm only imaging the drive once a week). So effectively, while I would have the cips for the last week, the DB would not have any entries for the last week.

I'm just learning and appreciate your comments and thoughts.

I would not put any page file on a slow drive when you have the ssd available for it...most likely blue iris is not every using the page file but it cannot hurt..
Keeping the database file on the ssd is probably more noticeable when you have many many files...regardless, even if you image the drive, you can simply rebuild/regenerate the DB afterwards..

 

[piconut]

I would not put any page file on a slow drive when you have the ssd available for it...most likely blue iris is not every using the page file but it cannot hurt..
Keeping the database file on the ssd is probably more noticeable when you have many many files...regardless, even if you image the drive, you can simply rebuild/regenerate the DB afterwards..

I'm not sure what qualifies for many many files but I currently have 29,000 clips in the NEW folder and it still seems to be running fine, but I don't mind moving it back to C as long as the DB can be re-created. I was about to ask how to do that but a little searching through the Blue Iris help file shows that I would just need to right click any clip and select Database > Repair/Regenerate so thanks for that helpful info about being able to recreate it needed.

Also, what about the location of the alerts? Right now I also have them on the D drive but if moving them back to C makes things run better then I can do that.