Q: Storing over two hard drives without moving?

[Frankenscript]

Hi folks,

Got BI set up and working fine on a single storage 2 TB Purple but I'm about to add a 4 TB Purple to the system.

What I don't understand is how to get BI to treat the (approximately) 6 TB of storage as effectively a single drive, such that it will fill up the space then delete the oldest files, wherever they are. I see how I could set up a "New" and "STored" on one drive and an AUX on another, and have the system moves files around, but what I want is it just to use all the available space as a single rolling drive, no copying files around, deleting oldest when the memory runs out.

What's the best way to set this up? The PC OS is on a separate SSD, used only for the OS and BI Database.

 

[fenderman]

You can set Windows to treat them as a single Drive... But a more effective solution it's the split the recording between two drives... Put one third of your cameras on a 2 terabyte and the rest on the four...
Also ensure that blueiris itself is on the SSD...

 

[crw030]

Hi folks,

Got BI set up and working fine on a single storage 2 TB Purple but I'm about to add a 4 TB Purple to the system.

What I don't understand is how to get BI to treat the (approximately) 6 TB of storage as effectively a single drive, such that it will fill up the space then delete the oldest files........The PC OS is on a separate SSD, used only for the OS and BI Database.

For what it is worth I use Stablebit Drivepool (but only recently started using it), to span three 4-TB drives (10.9 TB formatted) into a single pool. IDK if fenderman’s recommendation is purely software RAID or w/e, but I know Drivepool you can set different ratios on how the drives get used, and can add (or remove) drives from the pool as needed, including different capacities and replication of certain folders to protect certain files from loss due to drive failure.

Unfortunately, this is a pay option ($30), where I’m sure fenderman’s is free.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[Frankenscript]

You can set Windows to treat them as a single Drive... But a more effective solution it's the split the recording between two drives... Put one third of your cameras on a 2 terabyte and the rest on the four...
Also ensure that blueiris itself is on the SSD...

Thanks @fenderman . I've definitely got the software on the SSD.

I like the idea of splitting the recording over two drives as you suggest. In this way, if I have a drive failure, at least some of the cams would have video for that timeframe.

Let's see if I've done this correctly. First, I go to the main settings/clips & archiving, and configure some of the Aux locations to point to suitable locations on the smaller and bigger drives. So let's say Aux1 points to a folder on the 2TB drive and Aux2 points to a location on the 4TB drive.

Then in for each camera, go to [ Camera Properties... Record Tab... uncheck "Use Default" and pick either Aux1 or Aux 2 ] and repeat for all of my cameras. Now, the cameras will record to whichever location is defined, and the overall "keep for X days" and "limit folder size to Y GB" will be maintained, as well as the general rule that apparently BI makes sure there is always at least a GB of space on the drive, deleting oldest files as needed to maintain that, in the event that the rules about how much/long to keep don't ensure enough free space on the drive.

Is that pretty much it? I did some quick tests (on just one drive, since I haven't moved the 4 TB over here yet), defining Aux1 to point to a new folder I made on the 2 TB drive, then making one of my cameras record to it by replacing "New" / Use default with "Aux1". However no new files are in that new folder yet. Maybe I need to give it more time? Or is there some other step needed?

Attaching files showing configuration of Aux1 and of the camera I intended to record to that location. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?


Thanks again. Very helpful stuff.

EDIT: OK, a file just showed up there. By monitoring the clips on the right of the window, I see that indeed my Cam1 is saving to Aux 1 and I just needed to be patient to wait for a file to become visible in the appropriate location.

When I get home from kid sports I'm moving my other cameras over to BI.

 

[fenderman]

Thanks @fenderman . I've definitely got the software on the SSD.

I like the idea of splitting the recording over two drives as you suggest. In this way, if I have a drive failure, at least some of the cams would have video for that timeframe.

Let's see if I've done this correctly. First, I go to the main settings/clips & archiving, and configure some of the Aux locations to point to suitable locations on the smaller and bigger drives. So let's say Aux1 points to a folder on the 2TB drive and Aux2 points to a location on the 4TB drive.

Then in for each camera, go to [ Camera Properties... Record Tab... uncheck "Use Default" and pick either Aux1 or Aux 2 ] and repeat for all of my cameras. Now, the cameras will record to whichever location is defined, and the overall "keep for X days" and "limit folder size to Y GB" will be maintained, as well as the general rule that apparently BI makes sure there is always at least a GB of space on the drive, deleting oldest files as needed to maintain that, in the event that the rules about how much/long to keep don't ensure enough free space on the drive.

Is that pretty much it? I did some quick tests (on just one drive, since I haven't moved the 4 TB over here yet), defining Aux1 to point to a new folder I made on the 2 TB drive, then making one of my cameras record to it by replacing "New" / Use default with "Aux1". However no new files are in that new folder yet. Maybe I need to give it more time? Or is there some other step needed?

Attaching files showing configuration of Aux1 and of the camera I intended to record to that location. Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?
View attachment 29235 View attachment 29236

Thanks again. Very helpful stuff.

EDIT: OK, a file just showed up there. By monitoring the clips on the right of the window, I see that indeed my Cam1 is saving to Aux 1 and I just needed to be patient to wait for a file to become visible in the appropriate location.

When I get home from kid sports I'm moving my other cameras over to BI.

yes looks good..you can leave "use default" checked..that is for the file name format

 

[Frankenscript]

No shock here folks, but @fenderman 's suggestion worked great. I've got almost all my cams set up and running well in Blue Iris, with a third of them saving to Aux1 on the 2 TB drive and the rest saving to Aux2 on the 4 TB drive. I still have some tweaking to do for setting the optimal size for the folders but the solution is sound and accomplishes exactly what I wanted.

(Thanks again fenderman!)

I do notice one odd thing, that once in a while I get a tiny 1 kb .bvr file, and at times the file sizes range from 400MB to 4 GB... not sure why that is. But it's harmless, whatever is going on. All working well.

 

[sliding777]

I am trying drivepool. I have a 6tb and a 10tb. Im wondering if the balancing will automatically fill one drive, then the other. Just started digging around though this.
There are a bunch of options in something that initially seems so simple.
What are your settings like?

 

[fenderman]

I am trying drivepool. I have a 6tb and a 10tb. Im wondering if the balancing will automatically fill one drive, then the other. Just started digging around though this.
There are a bunch of options in something that initially seems so simple.
What are your settings like?

dont drivepool. See the second post.

 

[xdq]

No shock here folks, but @fenderman 's suggestion worked great. I've got almost all my cams set up and running well in Blue Iris, with a third of them saving to Aux1 on the 2 TB drive and the rest saving to Aux2 on the 4 TB drive. I still have some tweaking to do for setting the optimal size for the folders but the solution is sound and accomplishes exactly what I wanted.

(Thanks again fenderman!)

I do notice one odd thing, that once in a while I get a tiny 1 kb .bvr file, and at times the file sizes range from 400MB to 4 GB... not sure why that is. But it's harmless, whatever is going on. All working well.

If you have BI set to create a new file every 1 hour then the file size will vary based on the bitrate of the camera. If there is a lot of movement in that 1 hour then the file will be larger.
If you also have a max file set to 4GB and your file for a given hour is slightly larger than this then you'll see some potentially very small sized files.

There are other reasons too such as restarting BI or, I think, changing camera settings.