New system setup

[Chris@Wootware]

I have been using BI for a few years now and have started an upgrade to a new system.

The new system has 6 x 14TB HDDs in it for video storage, we record 24/7. Currently running 32 mixed cameras, most of which are 5MP. We will be adding in more cameras soon,
What is the optimal/generally agreed-upon method to set up storage across multiple drives? The current setup has New on one drive, then moving to Storage on another drive then to Aux 1, Aux 2 etc and finally deleting from the last drive. This does not seem optimal in terms of HDD and CPU writes.

I am currently on BI 5.2.7.12, would there be major benefits to renewing support and upgrading to a newer version?

 

[biggen]

Split your cameras to record on different drives. For example, 8 cams record to drive A, then another 8 record to drive B, etc.. That way you aren't moving video files around continuously.

In my opinion, having a current support contract is always preferable since you get access to all the latest developments and bug fixes.

 

[looney2ns]

^^^^^What @biggen said.
There is no need to be moving files around between drives.
The support is $30.00 per YEAR, it's worth every penny, and the developer deserves it.
Lots of additions and improvements being made almost weekly.

 

[wittaj]

The latest updates allow you to record substream until trigger then go to mainstream - it can be a huge storage saver. In addition to DeepStack AI.

 

[SouthernYankee]

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My Standard allocation post.

1) Do not use time (limit clip age)to determine when BI video files are moved or deleted, only use space. Using time wastes disk space.
2) If New and stored are on the same disk drive do not used stored, set the stored size to zero, set the new folder to delete, not move. All it does is waste CPU time and increase the number of disk writes. You can leave the stored folder on the drive just do not use it.
3) Never allocate over 90% of the total disk drive to BI.
4) if using continuous recording on the BI camera settings, record tab, set the combine and cut video to 1 hour or 3 GB. Really big files are difficult to transfer.
5) it is recommend to NOT store video on an SSD (the C: drive).
6) Do not run the disk defragmenter on the video storage disk drives.
7) Do not run virus scanners on BI folders
8) an alternate way to allocate space on multiple drives is to assign different cameras to different drives, so there is no file movement between new and stored.
9) Never use an External USB drive for the NEW folder. Never use a network drive for the NEW folder.


Advanced storage:
If you are using a complete disk for large video file storage (BVR) continuous recording, I recommend formatting the disk, with a windows cluster size of 1024K (1 Megabyte). This is a increase from the 4K default. This will reduce the physical number of disk write, decrease the disk fragmentation, speed up access.
Hint:
On the Blue iris status (lighting bolt graph) clip storage tab, if there is any red on the bars you have a allocation problem. If there is no Green, you have no free space, this is bad.
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[Chris@Wootware]

Perfect, thank you all for the suggestions.