The Perfect BI setup needs SSD ?

[malkazoid]

Internal 4TB SSD are over $400 US. (5/8/2021) . If they are cheaper then that I would test them to verify that they are really 4TB.

Use H2TESTW program to test before use, This is an old slow program but very concise, if it reports any error then the SSD is junk.

Indeed. My bad - didn't notice the google result that came up was from aliexpress, so of course dubious...

 

[CCTVCam]

First post here... just preparing to get set up with my first ipcam system.
I'm also preparing to set things up to be independent from the power grid with solar, so energy efficiency has become a real focus.
For a machine that is on 24/7, year in year out, an SSD presents some advantages beyond the obvious speed boosts.

In terms of storage drives, there are currently 4tb ssd drives available for a little over 100 bucks. Are there any reasons not to use ssd(s) for storage as well, with Blue Iris?

SSD's haven't traditionally been known for their long life when written to intensively as they use a form of flash memory and flash memory has an limited amount of write cycles before the cells start to die and the data corrupts. There are SSD's out there now designed for CCTV usage that use "Endurance Memory" but they are expensive. Personally, I wouldn't be using an ordinary SSD for CCTV storage as the lifespan is likely to be limited and you can guarnatee you'll notice corruption or a total failure right when you need a recording the most, the one's that's corrupted!

Either go for a CCTV specific SSD or a CCTV specific Hard Drive for storage and a separate ordinary SSD for BI and the OS.

As for the OS / Blue Iris, any old SSD will be fine. The amount of data exchange will be minimal and the performance maximal when the recordings are stored to a 2nd drive. Personally, I would err towards a quality drive, but really it isn't necessary to have the fastest. You also don't need a large drive. 120GB should suffice as BI is 100mb I believe and Windows around 20GB for the 64 bit version. I would probably go 240gb simply for headroom to add AI programs etc. as the prices are so low, risking not having enough with 120GB isn't worth it for the saving now:

As examples, you could get a Samsung Evo 470 off New Egg for $45 for a 250gb version for your OS etc:

240GB to 479GB Internal SSDs | Newegg.com

Shop 240GB to 479GB Internal SSDs on Newegg.com. Watch for amazing deals and get great pricing.

www.newegg.com

You could get a 4TB WD Purple Drive for your data for $95:

WD Purple 4TB Surveillance Hard Disk Drive 3.5" - Newegg.com

Buy WD Purple 4TB Surveillance Hard Disk Drive - 5400 RPM Class SATA 6Gb/s 64MB Cache 3.5 Inch WD40PURZ with fast shipping and top-rated customer service. Once you know, you Newegg!

www.newegg.com

There are similar from other brands.

 

[sebastiantombs]

Actually, if you have a motherboard that accepts an M2 drive, they are even faster than an SSD SATA drive. Again, while a machine used for Blue Iris is rarely booted, an SSD or M2 do result in much "snappier" performance. I recently caught my neighbor's log splitter being stolen. He came over to see the video and pick up the export. He thought the BI machine was a 10th generation eight core machine because it is so fast when it is an old 7th generation four core.

 

[CCTVCam]

Actually, if you have a motherboard that accepts an M2 drive, they are even faster than an SSD SATA drive. Again, while a machine used for Blue Iris is rarely booted, an SSD or M2 do result in much "snappier" performance. I recently caught my neighbor's log splitter being stolen. He came over to see the video and pick up the export. He thought the BI machine was a 10th generation eight core machine because it is so fast when it is an old 7th generation four core.

Yep but beware heating with Gen 4. Apparently if they do a sustained write for more than a short period they can get hot and when they do, they slow considerbly to even slower than an SSD or even a hard drive. In testing a couple of models even stopped writing entirely. There's a video on Youtube of testing of them. Think it was Linus Tech Tips, but could be wrong.

Probably unlikely you would hit thermal limits with BI. That said, though, its' unlikely the extra speed is worth it. I doubt you'd notice the difference between an SSD and M.2 with BI or similar as the data exhange isn't that great. For the money, I'd take an SSD unless space is at a premium in which case the form factor of M.2 can't be beat.

 

[sebastiantombs]

I noticed a definite difference when going from an SSD to an M2, both Samsung EVO. I do keep an eye on the temperature and yes they can run warm/hot, but after more than a year it still shows as healthy and is still the fastest drive I've ever had.

 

[ipmanau]

Hi, I was googling around on the suitability of BI5 for NVME drives, came across this thread and felt compelled to post my experience with a Samsung 860 EVO 1TB SSD that's been in use for a little over 1047 days (almost 3 years).

• The system is a HP EliteDesk 800 G2 mini - the host OS is Windows 10. These are basically laptops but in a desktop case, very small, low power, small fans, need regular dust blow out etc. HP EliteDesk 800 35W G2 Desktop Mini PC | HP® Customer Support
• On my system is BI5 and two HyperV Virtual Machines, it also captures modbus TCP data from a sensor directly through an app in the host OS - very small writes though that as an application.
• For the VM's in HyperV; One is Ubuntu with MQTT/Grafana/Prometheus and the other is Windows10 for torrents. The Ubuntu VM typically has at least a few writes going through it per minute from sensors and cloud-based integrations. The Windows VM could see 100GB per month of data move through it easily.
• Focusing on BI5, I typically write about 2300~ 8 second files (direct to disk) per day and have been during the whole time. I have 8 x 8MP cameras sending data to the machine continuously, two of those cameras face a road and make up most of the writes from cars passing daily. The average file size is estimated about 4MB for each file.bvr

I've attached the Samsung Magician snips and S.M.A.R.T. data. The SSD has an endurance rating of 600TBW for this model. So far, I have written 51TB according to the SM software and with no issues.

As of today, I have now moved BI5 to a 970 EVO Plus 1TB NVME drive in a HP EliteDesk G5 desktop case. The NVME stick is direct on the motherboard with no heat sinks etc. All the same configuration as above otherwise. I'll make a note to circle back in a few years or if something dies and add a new post.

All things considered, I'm pretty confident of this technology for this requirement.