Need hardware advice for a 20 camera setup

skysurf76

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I'm the "IT guy" for a small business and when they needed a new security camera setup I jumped in to volunteer and have been learning as I go. So far I have 6 Annke 4k cameras installed and am running zoneminder on a Ryzen 5 1600 with 14TB storage and 32GB ram. I'm really not happy with the interface and I am seriously considering switching to BI. I use the H265+ streams from the Annke cameras. I need to know if my current hardware, after installing windows 10 on it, would support 20 cameras using direct to disk in BI, or if I definitely need to look at switching to an intel rig.

If a switch to intel is necessary, for what I'm going for, what hardware specs should I be looking for? I would also rather spend a bit more and have some headroom than get the bare minimum as well.
 

SouthernYankee

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The requirement for Intel has decreased with the advent of BI substream processing. You can not use H.265+ with BI you can use H.265 and H.264. In the real world there is only a small (10%) space savings between the two, H.265 requires more processing.

DO a Clean install of Windows using MS Media Creation tool. Yes even on a brand new store bought computer.

The number of cameras is only part of the problem, the resolution of the cameras and the Frame rate and I frame value, amount of motion, video quality.
The Annke 4K cameras are OK of inside with good lighting, They are useless for outside night video.

Start with one good high quality variable focus camera, test the mounting position, coverage and lens. Test at night with motion.

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skysurf76

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The requirement for Intel has decreased with the advent of BI substream processing. You can not use H.265+ with BI you can use H.265 and H.264. In the real world there is only a small (10%) space savings between the two, H.265 requires more processing.

DO a Clean install of Windows using MS Media Creation tool. Yes even on a brand new store bought computer.

The number of cameras is only part of the problem, the resolution of the cameras and the Frame rate and I frame value, amount of motion, video quality.
The Annke 4K cameras are OK of inside with good lighting, They are useless for outside night video.

Start with one good high quality variable focus camera, test the mounting position, coverage and lens. Test at night with motion.

picking a PC.
============================
Choosing Hardware for Blue Iris
Blue Iris Update Helper
PassMark - CPU Benchmarks - CPU Mega Page - Detailed List of Benchmarked CPUs
====================================

Read,study,plan before spending money ..... plan plan plan
To save money do it right the first time.
Thanks for the initial information Yank. Your reply made me realize how much pertinent information I left out of my first post. Let me give more details before I say anything else.

-The Annkes are for inside only. I will be installing a couple of cameras outdoors but I won't be using the Annkes.
-I will be running the cameras at their full performance, 4k, 15fps.
-Their won't be any motion analysis necessary. We will just be doing 24/7 recording.


After reading your response I would like to know a few things...

-Why can't the Annke H.265+ be used with BI? It really does a phenomenal job of space saving with very good quality.
-Is CPU usage a concern if I'm not going to be doing any motion analysis and will just be recording everything to disk 24/7?
-What kind of memory would I need for a 20 camera setup? Is the current 32GB sufficient?
-Since I'll be recording 24/7 with no motion analysis would the Ryzen 5 1600 CPU be sufficient for 20 cameras?
 

SouthernYankee

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H.265+ is a non standard format
CPU is not much of a problem if record only. You will require processing for display and changing resolution, IE display 6 cameras on a screen. RUN web interface.
You can run BI easily with 20 cameras with 16GB.
It should not be a problem with the Ryzen 5 1600 CPU .

Set system up with an SSD 120 to 250 GB for the C drive.
Also for 4K cameras at 15FPS of data I would use a minimum of 2 hard drives internal.

How long do you want to keep the video data ?

--------------------------------------------------------
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.................... Dahua IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED review
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skysurf76

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H.265+ is a non standard format
CPU is not much of a problem if record only. You will require processing for display and changing resolution, IE display 6 cameras on a screen. RUN web interface.
You can run BI easily with 20 cameras with 16GB.
It should not be a problem with the Ryzen 5 1600 CPU .

Set system up with an SSD 120 to 250 GB for the C drive.
Also for 4K cameras at 15FPS of data I would use a minimum of 2 hard drives internal.

How long do you want to keep the video data ?

--------------------------------------------------------
Cameras to look at
IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED . Review IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED (Full Color, Starlight+) - 4MP starlight
.................... Dahua IPC-T5442TM-AS-LED review
IPC-T5442TM-AS ..... Review-OEM 4mp AI Cam IPC-T5442TM-AS Starlight+ - 4MP starlight+
IPC-HDW5442t-ZE .... Dahua IPC-HDW5442T-ZE 4MP Varifocal Turret - Night Perfomance testing -- variable focus 2.7 mm-12mm 4 MP Starlight
IPC-B5442E-ZE ...... Review - OEM IPC-B5442E-ZE 4MP AI Varifocal Bullet Camera With Starlight+ -- variable 2.7mm-12mm bullet
IPC-B5442E-Z4E .... bullet 8mm-32mm variable focus zoom 4MP
IPC-HFW7442H-Z ..... Review - Dahua IPC-HFW7442H-Z 4MP Ultra AI Varifocal Bullet Camera -- 4 MP variable focus AI

Video retention time isn't a huge priority. In the business I am doing this at if someone hasn't figured out within a week that something has happened that requires viewing the surveillance video then it probably wasn't that important. That being side I'd like to keep it to a minimum of two weeks. I currently have 5 4TB hard drives. I was using ZFS RaidZ1 which I love so if a drive dropped it would keep working for awhile without intervention. I already have the copy of windows on the way for BI so obviously ZFS isn't an option. I'm not sure how storage on BI works. If you have to specify a drive for each camera I guess I'll just do 3 cameras per drive. I'm kind of hoping BI storage is smart so you can tell it which drives to record on and if one poops it will see the drive isn't available anymore and continue using the remaining drives, but I feel like thats asking for alot. I don't really make any money for doing this for the company, I'm just an EE by profession and a huge gee, so doing everything I can to keep the maintenance as low as possible is the goal. The business owner pays for the toys and I get to learn and play with them. :) I was thinking about looking into software that would email me if windows detected a drive problem. I did some reading on windows 10 raid 5 and the consensus is that it is a no no.

Going from H265+ to H265 I expect my recording time to be cut in half. However, hard drives are cheap and getting a new case for the computer so I can throw in another 3 hard drives isn't a big deal.
 
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Flintstone61

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The Western Digital Surveillance drives are listed as showing 64 cameras stream capability. Doubt I would try that. But I have about 16 cams across 2 WD drives. seems more responsive with 2 drives sharing the load. I have a WD Purp 8TB. The other is a 5TB WD refurb Ebay drive that was cheap. The split is 5 on the refurb drive, and 10-11 on the WD Purp. The machine is also importing 2 Dvr feeds. one has 12 cams and the other has 2 cams.
I was originally doing this with an i7-3770S Optiplex 7010 sff box, with 32Gb ram. now I've got a i5-8500 machine with ddr 4 its doing well. Will probably stop at 20 Cameras as my switch ports are filling up. ( Shoulda got the 48 Port)
In Short, if you go intel, there are a lot of guys here running the i7-6700 on Hp Elitedesk or Dell Optiplex or homebuilts with a lot of cams. you can keep on eye on Used Machines on ebay. Sometimes on Newly Listed, Buy It Now, you'll see one pop up that a decent price. From a decent seller.
Once you realize you dont need 30 FPS to see everything, and you get substreams enabled, you'll be cruising along.
 

SouthernYankee

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The reduction from H.265+ to H.265 will result in about 1% storage difference. The difference in H.265 to H.264 is about 10% in my real world testing.

The way to set up the cameras and hard dive storage is to place 4 cameras on each of the 5 drives. Spread the cameras out, by that I mean if there are 5 cameras inside the business, assign one to each drive so it a drive fails you lose only one inside cameras .

Storage, a 4K/8MP camera at 15FPS, H.265 , medium quality will use about 1.7 GB per hour. High quality will be 3.0GB/hour. So 20 cameras at 4K medium quality for a week will required about 6 TB of storage. These number will change if you have a very high bit rate, and a lot of motion.
 
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