What high spec server would you choose for 50 cameras?

[spuls]

sorry, but what do you want? I would understand if you would tell me that an R350 can´t handle a GPU, because i was meaning the T350.

1. if he takes the dell model and configure it, he´ll see.He asked for a direction, not for a sales quote.

2. where did i recommend 16gb for Storage? I guess you mean the first server. There i recommend a mixed Raid1/Raid5 setup, you can not simple add up the numbers. You get 1Tb for ssd and about 12tb hdd archive storage, redundancy does not come for free.

3. "not that it will ever be needed" is a statment that i would take quite unserious as a business owner. In a perfect world we would not need hardware warranty, but in this world hardware simple fails sometimes.


Sure, you can use desktop grade hardware => as you could run it with Reolink cameras.

There is a reason why server grade hardware exists. Your desktop is dead if a ram module is defective, the server keeps running. You may not even know why it´s dead because the typical desktop does not use ECC memory. Your desktop is dead when you work without storage redundancy, the server keeps running because a defective disk is caught by the raid setup. Your desktop is dead if the power supply is defective, the server keeps running because it has 2.

 

[fenderman]

sorry, but what do you want? I would understand if you would tell me that an R350 can´t handle a GPU, because i was meaning the T350.

1. if he takes the dell model and configure it, he´ll see.He asked for a direction, not for a sales quote.

2. where did i recommend 16gb for Storage? I guess you mean the first server. There i recommend a mixed Raid1/Raid5 setup, you can not simple add up the numbers. You get 1Tb for ssd and about 12tb hdd archive storage, redundancy does not come for free.

3. "not that it will ever be needed" is a statment that i would take quite unserious as a business owner. In a perfect world we would not need hardware warranty, but in this world hardware simple fails sometimes.


Sure, you can use desktop grade hardware => as you could run it with Reolink cameras.

There is a reason why server grade hardware exists. Your desktop is dead if a ram module is defective, the server keeps running. You may not even know why it´s dead because the typical desktop does not use ECC memory. Your desktop is dead when you work without storage redundancy, the server keeps running because a defective disk is caught by the raid setup. Your desktop is dead if the power supply is defective, the server keeps running because it has 2.

Who said anything about a GPU?
For gods sake, why are you keeping the CPU processor a secret? This is the core of the system - you dont even know what you are trying to sell...
I see that you cant make a rational argument so you resort to harping on a typo. You are mistaken, I was not saying that 16TB is too large, its WAY TO SMALL. 12TB of storage is INSUFFICIENT for 50 cameras if you want any sort of decent storage time and or you want to record continuously (at least the sub stream). Hard drives are CHEAP. 1tb SSD samsung 980 pro is $120, the 2tb is on sale for 180. 12TB WD purple is 289. Pop two of them in and if you wish set to raid 1, now no need for nonsense raid 5 that will take hours to rebuild in the event of a failure. For the price of your suggestion he could have tripple server redundancy and have money left over in his pocket.
I understand that you are a dell salesman but I have 20 blue iris machines that have been running (many at 50% cpu or more before using substreams and main streams together was a feature) with no failures.

With respect to service -- dell will send an incompetent schmuck who is a parts changer - if you ever need it. I literally supported 100's of pc's at a time and there were YEARS with zero failure rates - zero. Modern pc's dont have these issues. Worst case a spinning drive needs replacement. And again, I have purchased $500 dell/hp business systems with 3 year NBD warranties.

 

[Holbs]

As for the physical space of a server build look at my server build with a 2u rack mount server case that can hold four 3.5 inch hard drives which should be more than enough for 50 plus cameras. I may be doing the same type of setup if this one customer of mine chooses to go with me.

 

[Henry Thorpe]

A few notes:

1) I wouldn't bother with a NAS. Configure the local disks as just a bunch of disks and distribute the cameras evenly over them. The number and size will be determined by how long you want to retain the video.

2) No need for a SSD for recording video. A bunch of disks will be plenty fast enough. On the other hand, you definitely want the BI data base to be on a SSD. Before I switched my daily data base optimizations (?rebuilds?) were taking 30+ minutes.

3) You will probably want two NICs on the computer. My network usage is 250 Mbps. Three times this would be too much for a single 1Gbps NIC. Unless of course you use lower frame rates or image quality.

4) A good switch should be able to handle the load with no problem. Traffic from the cameras through a switch and on to the BI computer should not interfere with any other traffic. They are designed to allow full speed switching without slowing down. But don't let the camera traffic span any ethernet lines running other traffic. And don't try to use the router as a switch for the camera traffic . Most routers can't handle the extra load. You said you have access to IT pros. Use them.

My system has 17-18 cameras, half 4k, all running at 20Hz, and very high quality. My typical CPU load is 10-15%, spiking to 100% when AI is examining images. Most cameras are using camera triggers, not BI. I have one internal 10 TB disk and two external 14 TB eSATA disks. This provide over 400 hours. (16 days) of saved recordings. My LAN is set up as router --> 16 port switch --> everything local, including two POE switches and about 50 devices.

Quest100-

Thanks for your views on keeping storage on the server and not connecting a NAS. I will read up on distributing the cameras evenly over drives- I guess that is a feature in blue Iris.

On the storage media- good to know surveillance grade hdds should be enough and good idea that the BI database should be on an SSD. I guess that would be along with the server operating system too on the SSD.

Regarding NICs- this chimes with what Valiant User mentions. Sorry, just wanted to check, are you suggesting two NICs for video alone. Ie for 50 cameras- 25 on one NIC and 25 on the other? or are you saying two so one for camera traffic and the other for non camera traffic?

On the subject of camera traffic- definitely will separate. Our Sage 300 ERP sometimes freezes and I suspect that is because it shares switches which have (unoptimised) camera traffic on it. (Although we are also running domain controller and SQL on the same server and apparently that is not advised- so that may be the culprit) Funny you should mention routers as we do have one configured as a switch but I don't think it handles heavy traffic. The network has grown organically over the years and we hope to address this in the overhaul.

Good to know the specs of other systems out there to get a feel for it and that makes sense to make sense to get the cameras to do some of the work with the triggers.

 

[quest100]

There are many ways to set up BI that work and even more ways that don't. My advice is based on what works for my one system - some of the other repliers have many many systems under their belt. A lot depends on what you decide is important. You may be satisfied with lower quality most of the time with high quality only when triggered. For my system I wanted 24/7 recording of the highest quality possible. It's a trade off between money and the unexpected.

I was thinking you would want two NICs just for the cameras. But if you reduce the frames per second and slightly reduce the image quality you might be able to use just one NIC. Personally, I would not want more than about 300 Mbps streaming over one NIC. For 50 cameras that's 6,000 bits per second per camera. That is lower than I would want to run, especially with 4k cameras. If you are recording sub streams most of the time this may not be a problem. I don't record that way so you would need to ask someone else about this option.

My router is set up with three switches hanging off of it. Communications between the devices on separate switches must go through the router, but none of that is heavy traffic. My main switch has two POE switches with all the cameras, the BI PC, and my main computer. I still get over 850 Mbps down loads to my computer while BI is seeing 250 Mbps with no hiccups. I depend on firewall rules to separate the cameras from elsewhere. Other than the BI PC and my computer, all traffic to and from the cameras is blocked. Safer, but less flexible is to hang all the cameras off the NIC(s) in the BI PC.

 

[Henry Thorpe]

With that many cameras you'd be looking at 10gb backbone.
You'll be wanting substantial disk performance.
I'd be looking at SSD as the primary recording disks and then archive off to slower disks for longer term storage.
Say nightly transfer.

Thanks looktall for all suggestions. On the subject of networks, other users have discussed 1gb vs 10gb network but will have a look at the costs. By the time we implement this 10gb switches might be the norm!- I believe they are becoming more prevalent. Would have to make sure we used Cat6A shielded cabling. There's an argument for future proofing but we are in a remote location and remotely supported so don't want to be too ahead of the curve.

 

[Henry Thorpe]

CPU performance is not as big a priority as it used to be, thanks to sub stream support. Dual processors are absolutely unnecessary. Should be more than sufficient to pick a CPU with a cpubenchmark.net score of at least 20,000, with at least 2500 on the single threaded score. Even a low tier i5 CPU from the latest Intel generation far exceeds that performance level. Just don't get screwed on CPU performance in order to have "server grade" hardware. I know the types of CPUs that dell and such like to put into entry level servers.

I'd go with 32 GB of RAM. If you run AI stuff on this server, then the AI program is likely to use more than Blue Iris if my own instance is any indication. So maybe consider 64 GB if the RAM is cheap.

No need for a 10 Gbps network. Gigabit would be fine given the bandwidth constraints of most of today's cameras. Practically any gigabit switch has fast enough switching fabric that you can saturate all the ports at the same time. But if you go that way you should consider having two NICs in the server so one can be dedicated to the camera network. You wouldn't other traffic to interfere with camera streaming, or vice versa. It is also a great deal more secure if you do not have the IP cameras on a network that has internet access.

For storage for two weeks, you'll probably be depending on Blue Iris's ability to record sub streams continuously, and add in the main stream when motion is detected. I believe that is the "Continuous + Triggered" option in this menu:

View attachment 145636

Imagine each sub stream averages 1 Mbps, which is probably reasonable, then with 50 cameras you have 50 Mbps. Multiply by 14 days and you have 7.56 terabytes. That would be your absolute minimum storage to have. You will frequently be recording main streams too though, and main streams are a lot bigger. If you aim kind of high and assume there will be 250 Mbps of data being written on average, then the storage requirement is 37.8 TB. (assuming about 10 Mbps average per main stream, that would allow for 20 main streams plus all 50 sub streams to be recording at all times). However much storage you get, make sure you get surveillance-rated drives. And if you want to do a RAID array, consider that resilvering a large RAID that is undergoing a high rate of writes may be absurdly slow and may affect recording performance while it is going on. Me personally, I would rather run a totally independent second Blue Iris server than record continuously to a RAID array. You get far better redundancy that way.

I would not use a NAS for storage.

But a high-endurance SSD for initial video storage before moving the data to mechanical HDDs is actually a really good idea especially if you're going to use the timeline a lot to review recent video. The timeline works a lot better when loading clips from SSD.

Windows Server editions are unnecessary, but should work if that is what you get. Turn off automatic updates both for Blue Iris and for Windows. Unless you don't care about unexpected outages and problems cropping up randomly.

Thanks for the advice of spending the budget on Ram rather than dual processors. Will certainly make sure that the camera subnet is isolated from the internet.

Thanks for bringing my attention to 'continuous+triggered' -motion triggering recording at a higher resolution makes sense as some days like Sunday the shop is shut with no scene changes and we would only be interested in an event like a break in.

That's great to get a rough calculation on storage- 37.8TB is very doable. Looking at Dell servers we have now there are 8 drive slots – so that would be 5 x 8TB surveillance grade HDD's so that allays my fear that there would not be enough space in the server and a NAS would be needed for over spill.

That's an interesting suggestion on redundancy: to run two Blue Iris servers – I guess you would buy the program twice then? For us the camera footage is not mission critical so I think we can dispense with RAID but I guess we then have to make it a dedicated camera server as mission critical applications would want RAID. So if the server has other roles it might be setup with one of the Raids.

I've witnessed the Synology NAS (which has RAID setup) rebuild the HDDs after changing them and it took ages.

I've heard a lot of mention of the timeline feature- sounds like a time saver. I think it probably exists on surveillance station on the Synology NAS but we haven't worked it out yet.

Thanks for tip on turning off the updates for Windows Update and Blue Iris and installing them in a more controlled manner.

 

[Henry Thorpe]

Dell R350
8Cores/16Threads Xeon
32Gb Memory
2x 1Tb SSD (Raid1) for OS and very fast access to the footage of the last 24 hours
4x 4Tb 7200 RPM SATA Disks (Raid5) for footage archive (after 24h)
36 Months OnSite NBD Support
Optional: Coral TPU as AI Accelerator (req only with Proxmox or ESXi as Host OS) - no Dell Support
Optional: GPU as AI Accelerator - limited Dell Support

would be around 4500$ (via Dell Partner)



Dell R6515
16Cores/32Threads AMD Epyc
64Gb Memory
6x 2,4Tb 10k RPM SAS Disks
60 Months OnSite NBD Support
very limited GPU Support (1HE)
Optional: Coral TPU as AI Accelerator (req only with Proxmox or ESXi as Host OS) - no Dell Support

would be around 6000$ (via Dell Partner)

Thanks so much for doing the work for me and suggesting two Dell servers.

And for bringing my attention to a TPU as AI accelerator. Looks like this is a relatively new technology and we have never considered this when looking at server specs before. I had a quick read and it looks like the Coral TPU can run without the cloud- which is good as we run our business on a 30gb a month metered connection!

I'm glad that we could get such beefy specs within the budget.

 

[Henry Thorpe]

Like spending 12-15k USD for 50 Hikvision Cameras when you get the "same" for 2k USD from Reolink?

It is a configuration within the given budget and quite reasonable for a business setup with 50+ cameras. Of course, you can save on storage and buy cheaper disk without on-site support. You might pay that back twice later when you have to deal with everything by yourself.

Thanks Spuls. I was actually going to go the Reolink route having watched a youtuber channel called The Hookup that reviewed them. Although I can't quite articulate why we are going to spend big on the server and save on the cameras!

 

[looktall]

Although I can't quite articulate why we are going to spend big on the server and save on the cameras!

Because you like wasting money?

 

[sebastiantombs]

Reolink performance reference -

Compiled by wittaj

The Typical picture of a Perp on Nextdoor-type Apps with Consumer Grade Cameras like Ring, Nest, Arlo, Canary, Wyze, etc.

Love these posts on Nextdoor type apps LOL. This thread will be used for members to post the poor quality consumer grade type camera images that we see people post to the Nextdoor type apps. Can anyone make out this person that went thru their cars LOL.... And this thread is where members...

ipcamtalk.com

 

[CCTVCam]

And for bringing my attention to a TPU as AI accelerator. Looks like this is a relatively new technology and we have never considered this when looking at server specs before. I had a quick read and it looks like the Coral TPU can run without the cloud- which is good as we run our business on a 30gb a month metered connection!

Good luck finding one. Out of production atm it seems due to chip shortages. You may find one at 4x the price if you hunt scalpers and ebayer's sites.

As for support, I understand Coral hasn't yet been supported in BI. You can use it, one user has, but be prepared for a shed load of technical tampering to make it work. I for one am looking forward to the Coral TPU both becoming available and getting full wizard support in BI, just understand it hasn't happened yet. Hopefully, Ken will integrate Coral TPU as he has the new AI system and make it a simple Wizard 1 click installation. For now though, it seems to be an area for it professionals and amateur programmers.

 

[wittaj]

Thanks Spuls. I was actually going to go the Reolink route having watched a youtuber channel called The Hookup that reviewed them. Although I can't quite articulate why we are going to spend big on the server and save on the cameras!

Do a search here, plenty have been burned by the hookup LOL...

Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

Executive Summary: DO NOT be a sheep. Ask what a reviewer can be missing, ask if a reviewer is using hype words to sell the cheapest product. Test your cameras and kits right away. Just do a bench test. Test real world conditions. Test moving suspects. Test at night, test at day. Use a test rig...

ipcamtalk.com

I F###ed up... the hook up...

So, after spending a good few hours here over the last day or so I realize I made an error. I like, many others it would seem found the videos from "The Hook Up" and jumped straight onto his review and purchased the ReoLink 820a to replace my horrendous Ring cameras. This was also my first...

ipcamtalk.com

Search results for query: reolink

ipcamtalk.com

Search results for query: hookup

ipcamtalk.com

 

[Henry Thorpe]

Who said anything about a GPU?
For gods sake, why are you keeping the CPU processor a secret? This is the core of the system - you dont even know what you are trying to sell...
I see that you cant make a rational argument so you resort to harping on a typo. You are mistaken, I was not saying that 16TB is too large, its WAY TO SMALL. 12TB of storage is INSUFFICIENT for 50 cameras if you want any sort of decent storage time and or you want to record continuously (at least the sub stream). Hard drives are CHEAP. 1tb SSD samsung 980 pro is $120, the 2tb is on sale for 180. 12TB WD purple is 289. Pop two of them in and if you wish set to raid 1, now no need for nonsense raid 5 that will take hours to rebuild in the event of a failure. For the price of your suggestion he could have tripple server redundancy and have money left over in his pocket.
I understand that you are a dell salesman but I have 20 blue iris machines that have been running (many at 50% cpu or more before using substreams and main streams together was a feature) with no failures.

With respect to service -- dell will send an incompetent schmuck who is a parts changer - if you ever need it. I literally supported 100's of pc's at a time and there were YEARS with zero failure rates - zero. Modern pc's dont have these issues. Worst case a spinning drive needs replacement. And again, I have purchased $500 dell/hp business systems with 3 year NBD warranties.

Thanks fenderman for input on this.

Servers are eye waterinly expensive when you put it up against the cost of buying high spec desktop towers.

We really only use Dell warranty for parts and diagnostics as no engineer can get on site due to our remoteness. Just had to send a Dell server down to Capetown South Africa for repair- that's are secondary Domain Controller so hope to get it back soon!

I guess I've got the server route in mind as everything is in one place, two power supplies, two NICs and an Idrac, lots of space for HDDs and Ram slots.

Note- Rack servers are neater but we have been going with towers so we can have them in different rooms in case of the (hopefully unlikely) event of a fire.

 

[Henry Thorpe]

Because you like wasting money?

Ouch!

 

[looktall]

Ouch!

The truth hurts.

A wizz bang server will do absolutely nothing to improve the quality of the video coming from shitty cameras.

 

[Henry Thorpe]

Do a search here, plenty have been burned by the hookup LOL...

Reolink: Deconstruction of a dangerous misleading youtube review "Finding the BEST 4K Security Camera NVR Package (Reolink vs Amcrest vs Swann)"

Executive Summary: DO NOT be a sheep. Ask what a reviewer can be missing, ask if a reviewer is using hype words to sell the cheapest product. Test your cameras and kits right away. Just do a bench test. Test real world conditions. Test moving suspects. Test at night, test at day. Use a test rig...

ipcamtalk.com

I F###ed up... the hook up...

So, after spending a good few hours here over the last day or so I realize I made an error. I like, many others it would seem found the videos from "The Hook Up" and jumped straight onto his review and purchased the ReoLink 820a to replace my horrendous Ring cameras. This was also my first...

ipcamtalk.com

Search results for query: reolink

ipcamtalk.com

Search results for query: hookup

ipcamtalk.com

Thanks for the links. I see what you mean about Reolink, there are loads of threads on this which I am still working my way through! Hikvision and Dahau is what most people suggest so will look at their models. I guess if someone did break in and it was low light conditions I would be gutted if what a Reolink captured wasn't usable!

 

[fenderman]

Thanks for the links. I see what you mean about Reolink, there are loads of threads on this which I am still working my way through! Hikvision and Dahau is what most people suggest so will look at their models. I guess if someone did break in and it was low light conditions I would be gutted if what a Reolink captured wasn't usable!

You should have an alarm system.

 

[Daniel15]

By the time we implement this 10gb switches might be the norm!- I believe they are becoming more prevalent. Would have to make sure we used Cat6A shielded cabling

If you're planning a brand new network for a larger business / office and are thinking of 10Gbps, for the backbone / core switches I'd suggest using fiber with SFP+ modules if possible.

• For 10Gbps, fiber uses far less power (around 0.4-0.8W per port compared to 4-5W per port for copper 10GBase-T)
• Cable runs can be a lot longer
• There's no risk of electromagnetic interference
• It's pretty easy to find Gigabit switches with 10Gbps SFP+ uplinks (easier to find than Gigabit switches with 10GBase-T uplinks).
• Switches with SFP+ ports are a lot cheaper than switches with 10GBase-T ports, for example compare MikroTik CRS317-1G-16S+RM (16 x 10Gbps SFP+, $439 retail) with CRS312-4C+8XG-RM (12 x copper 10GBase-T ports, $659 retail)
• Fiber is more future proof in case you ever want 40Gbps or 100Gbps network segments in the far future.

I'm wiring my house with CAT6 but all my runs are less than 55 meters so I'll be able to get 10 Gigabit to all of them. Fiber is overkill for home usage but I'd definitely recommend it for a professional/enterprise environment.

Windows Server editions are unnecessary, but should work if that is what you get

I wouldn't recommend consumer editions of Windows in professional environments, but the server licensing can get very expensive so I understand why some people just stick with Windows 10 or 11. Depending on the environment, they may already have server licenses available.

Turn off automatic updates both for Blue Iris and for Windows.

If you disable automatic updates, make sure the system is completely firewalled. For example, you may want to only allow RDP access from a management VLAN or VPN, and on other networks block all incoming ports except for Blue Iris.

 

[fvruvolo]

What are your specifications for a high spec 'dream' camera server to run Blue Iris 50 cameras in a business environment?

Or can anyone point me in the direction of a hardware calculator or another post that has tackled this?

There are so many options to choose: Which processor? Should they be dual? Which graphics card? How many surveillance grade HDDs and should these be in the server or should the storage be on NAS?

Some information:

Cameras: 50 planned– Connected by Ethernet cable, optimised to 15 fps and using substreams to view internal environments.

Environment: For a shop and warehouse. Lan in place with two other servers and this server would be dedicated to Blue Iris and Deepstack only. SQL database and email server on other servers.

Viewing: Mostly viewing on premises (might review remotely over the internet at some stage)

Storage requirement: 2 weeks preferred

Budget: £5000 or $6000 (just in case anyone suggested solid state storage drives!)

Preferred brand: Dell using the latest Windows OS



Other notes:

Current setup: 2 Synology NAS with ten cameras each and a mismatch of IP cameras. Mostly use for tracking down mistakes that happen at the tills.

My technical level: Beginner but I have access to IT pros!

Any suggestions or pointing in the right direction would be much appreciated!

We have such a setup.
we're running 51 cams all HikVision HD to UHD cams on an HP DL380
64GB RAM
Xeon Gold 2.8Ghz - 16C
Windows Server 2019 Standard
500GB C:\ Partition
6.7TB D:\ Partition for recordings - Holds about 2-3 weeks, give or take.
RAID 6

Camera system at peak day is running about 250 Mbps through the network so, as it's been stated, you better have some primo switches. I only use Extreme Switches. They are flawless and quick.

Any other info, let me know.