Newbie - advice please

[Paul Richards]

Hello everyone, I've been hanging around in the forum for quite sometime benefitting from the great experience and advice you have to offer.

I've got an ageing analogue CCTV system around my home which is ripe for replacement.
It consists of 3 Sony cameras recording to a DVR which is on its last legs. I've also got some Foscam cameras Managed through Surveillance Station to my Synology NAS (DS213+).
I'd like to upgrade it all to some decent stuff and wanted to seek some advice.

Following comments from many on this forum I've bought some Dahua kit (2x Dahua IPC-HDW5231R-Z and 1x HDBW4231F-AS) from Andy at EmpireTech (Great Service Andy, I'm not finished yet, I'll be buying more). I'd like to seek advice from you all.

I can't decide the best route for setting up the new system; Stand alone Dahua NVR (which one?), Blue Iris on a PC (I'd need to buy a PC as I'm a Mac user), my old Synology DS213+ (probably too underpowered to run the 8 or so cameras I'd eventually need) or use my brand new Synology DS918+ with 16Gb RAM.

I had intended to use the DS213+ and bought a 8 port POE netgear switch but I'm not so sure now.

Before I buy any more kit I'd really appreciate some advice about the best options.

regards
Paul

 

[looney2ns]

Welcome,
Have you read the cliff notes in the wiki at the top of the page?

 

[mat200]

Hello everyone,..
I can't decide the best route for setting up the new system; Stand alone Dahua NVR (which one?), Blue Iris on a PC (I'd need to buy a PC as I'm a Mac user), my old Synology DS213+ (probably too underpowered to run the 8 or so cameras I'd eventually need) or use my brand new Synology DS918+ with 16Gb RAM.
..
regards
Paul

Welcome Paul,

From the reading I have done here, it looks like the Synology solution is the least preferred.

Thus I would narrow your considerations to:

1) NVR w/embedded PoE ports.
2) NVR + external PoE switch
3) i5/i7 windows PC w/Blue Iris + external PoE switch

note - it is able possible to use both a NVR and Blue Iris PC setup to record / analysis.

 

[Paul Richards]

Thanks Mat, much appreciated.
Given that I already have a POE switch (Netgear 8 port) should I simply use that with a non POE NVR or is using a POE NVR a better option in terms of flexibility etc?
Paul

 

[Paul Richards]

Welcome,
Have you read the cliff notes in the wiki at the top of the page?

Being from the U.K. (island just off Europe!) it took me a while to work out what cliff notes are, we call them stickies or sticky notes.
I've now read the cliff notes, but I still find myself in need of a little advice.
Paul

 

[looney2ns]

Being from the U.K. (island just off Europe!) it took me a while to work out what cliff notes are, we call them stickies or sticky notes.
I've now read the cliff notes, but I still find myself in need of a little advice.
Paul

Ask away.
@Paul Richards

 

[looney2ns]

Thanks Mat, much appreciated.
Given that I already have a POE switch (Netgear 8 port) should I simply use that with a non POE NVR or is using a POE NVR a better option in terms of flexibility etc?
Paul

Using a separate POE switch with a NON-Poe NVR is the most flexible. You can mount the switch and all incoming cables out of the way, then just run one Ethernet cable from the NVR to the switch.
This also gives you easier access to adjust the settings in the cameras themselves.

 

[trucams]

+1 to what @looney2ns said. NonPOE NVR with a POE switch. If you decide down the road to migrate to BI, the infrastructure is already set up. Direct access to cameras for non-NVR settings IS much easier!

 

[Paul Richards]

Thanks for both responses. I bought the Dahua NVR5216-16P-4KS2E 16 Channel POE plus a couple of
IPC-HDW5231R-Z cameras from Andy. I most probably will not use the poe on the NVR but I'll use the poe switch instead to get the additional flexibility you mentioned.
Thanks for your advice and help.
Paul