BI 5 Server Setup for ~39 cameras + Deepstack
Posted: Wed Jan 12, 2022 12:32 am
Hey all, Been doing quite a bit of reading in the forums here trying to learn as much as I can about Blue Iris and just surveillance setups in general. I've got a friend that is building a new home on a pretty decent sized piece of property, and he has asked his brother and me to try to take on the project of setting up the property with surveillance and networking. This is going to be a big learning experience for both his brother and me. He has a background in networking, I've done my fair share of small networking jobs and building PCs for friends/family. But definitely a first for doing this size of a project. And a first for either of us using BI, so be patient if I'm not a BI Guru .
Main 2 questions I have... Is our hardware going to be capable of doing what we want. And do we go with WD Purple Pros that are running at around, $25-$26 per TB. Or should I go with Skyhawk AIs that I can get for around $23 per TB? The other option that just surfaced is getting Seagate Exos Enterprise drives, currently can get 16TB exos drives for around $19/TB. Also... has anybody had any experience in trying to mix WD Purples, Skyhawk, and/or enterprise drives? I know they have different softwares to make them ideal for surveillance drives, so I question mixing them.
Current planned setup (this may expand in future years and would like the system to be more or less future proofed)
35 4 MP anpviz PoE dome cameras. Most will probably run at 20 FPS with Deepstack AI being used. (have this figured to be ~38 GB/day usage per camera without Deepstack)
4 8 MP Starlight PoE Bullet Cameras. Running at 30 FPS with Deepstack AI. (have this figured to be ~90 GB/day usage per camera without Deepstack)
Server
4u Rosewill Chassis with 12 3.5" trays
Z590 motherboard
Intel i9 10850k CPU (10 core 3.6 Ghz)
32 GB (2x16gb) 3200mhz 16 Latency RAM (Actually have another 32 GB to throw at it to go up to 64 GB if needed)
500 GB m.2 Western Digital SN750 Black (for OS and BI only)
750W Platinum Seasonic PSU
NO Raid Array
Currently for storage we will either be going with WD Purple Pros, or Skyhawk AI drives, or maybe Seagate Exos enterprise drives. Going to start with ~150 TBs of storage and see how fast it fills up and go from there. I've tried calculating how much space is going to be required, and it's really tough to figure out without having some live feeds going and seeing how much is actually being used. If 150 TBs is overkill... that's fine... just means we can store stuff for longer (buddy originally wanted to store video for between 6 months and a year... talked him out of that...)
This is where things get kinda weird. My friend is going to end up having 3 main "zones" of cameras that will have different purposes.
There is a softball field and a baseball field that will be on the property that the "IDEA" is to be able to give parents access to those cameras to watch their kids play their baseball/softball games. Probably will plan on 1 camera per field at this time. There will also a large shop that will be broken into 3 areas (hitting facility for baseball, personal, and storage). Hitting facility will have the 8 MP cameras and once again we will want to allow parents to watch their kids practice through those cameras if they are at home and not able to attend the game or practice. We will call these parents "Group A". There will be 4 cameras in the personal area that we will allow certain people to log in to view. We will call these people "Group B". The rest of the cameras will be around the rest of the shop (inside and outside) and will just be used for general security cameras like the house.
Due to the fact that we are dealing with recording kids... we want to have at least 6 months of video storage on any camera that deals with kids so that we can protect ourselves from any future issues. The cameras around the house only need to store between 2-3 months of footage since they aren't dealing with kids.
So.... a summary of cameras and how long we will be storing footage...
15 4 MP (between 15-20 FPS) cameras around the main house. (2-3 months of footage stored) (no access from Group A or B)
4 8 MP (between 20-30 FPS) cameras in hitting facility. (6 months of footage stored) (Group A needs access)
6 4 MP (between 15-20 FPS) cameras for fields and general surveillance in hitting facility. (6 months of footage stored) (Group A needs access)
6 4 MP (between 15-20 FPS) cameras for personal side of shop. (2-3 months of footage stored) (Group B needs access)
8 4 MP (between 15-20 FPS) cameras for outside of shop and inside storage area. (2-3 months of footage stored) (no access from Group A or B)
Is the system that I have built going to be capable of doing all that we are asking of it? or should I consider building a 2nd identical system to help split the load? I know it would require a second BI license, but one reason we thought about doing 2 systems was just so we could have one system be dedicated to "the kids" and the 2nd one be for personal use.
Sorry about the long post... just really trying to make sure the whole situation was explained. Thanks for any advice and/or help.
Main 2 questions I have... Is our hardware going to be capable of doing what we want. And do we go with WD Purple Pros that are running at around, $25-$26 per TB. Or should I go with Skyhawk AIs that I can get for around $23 per TB? The other option that just surfaced is getting Seagate Exos Enterprise drives, currently can get 16TB exos drives for around $19/TB. Also... has anybody had any experience in trying to mix WD Purples, Skyhawk, and/or enterprise drives? I know they have different softwares to make them ideal for surveillance drives, so I question mixing them.
Current planned setup (this may expand in future years and would like the system to be more or less future proofed)
35 4 MP anpviz PoE dome cameras. Most will probably run at 20 FPS with Deepstack AI being used. (have this figured to be ~38 GB/day usage per camera without Deepstack)
4 8 MP Starlight PoE Bullet Cameras. Running at 30 FPS with Deepstack AI. (have this figured to be ~90 GB/day usage per camera without Deepstack)
Server
4u Rosewill Chassis with 12 3.5" trays
Z590 motherboard
Intel i9 10850k CPU (10 core 3.6 Ghz)
32 GB (2x16gb) 3200mhz 16 Latency RAM (Actually have another 32 GB to throw at it to go up to 64 GB if needed)
500 GB m.2 Western Digital SN750 Black (for OS and BI only)
750W Platinum Seasonic PSU
NO Raid Array
Currently for storage we will either be going with WD Purple Pros, or Skyhawk AI drives, or maybe Seagate Exos enterprise drives. Going to start with ~150 TBs of storage and see how fast it fills up and go from there. I've tried calculating how much space is going to be required, and it's really tough to figure out without having some live feeds going and seeing how much is actually being used. If 150 TBs is overkill... that's fine... just means we can store stuff for longer (buddy originally wanted to store video for between 6 months and a year... talked him out of that...)
This is where things get kinda weird. My friend is going to end up having 3 main "zones" of cameras that will have different purposes.
There is a softball field and a baseball field that will be on the property that the "IDEA" is to be able to give parents access to those cameras to watch their kids play their baseball/softball games. Probably will plan on 1 camera per field at this time. There will also a large shop that will be broken into 3 areas (hitting facility for baseball, personal, and storage). Hitting facility will have the 8 MP cameras and once again we will want to allow parents to watch their kids practice through those cameras if they are at home and not able to attend the game or practice. We will call these parents "Group A". There will be 4 cameras in the personal area that we will allow certain people to log in to view. We will call these people "Group B". The rest of the cameras will be around the rest of the shop (inside and outside) and will just be used for general security cameras like the house.
Due to the fact that we are dealing with recording kids... we want to have at least 6 months of video storage on any camera that deals with kids so that we can protect ourselves from any future issues. The cameras around the house only need to store between 2-3 months of footage since they aren't dealing with kids.
So.... a summary of cameras and how long we will be storing footage...
15 4 MP (between 15-20 FPS) cameras around the main house. (2-3 months of footage stored) (no access from Group A or B)
4 8 MP (between 20-30 FPS) cameras in hitting facility. (6 months of footage stored) (Group A needs access)
6 4 MP (between 15-20 FPS) cameras for fields and general surveillance in hitting facility. (6 months of footage stored) (Group A needs access)
6 4 MP (between 15-20 FPS) cameras for personal side of shop. (2-3 months of footage stored) (Group B needs access)
8 4 MP (between 15-20 FPS) cameras for outside of shop and inside storage area. (2-3 months of footage stored) (no access from Group A or B)
Is the system that I have built going to be capable of doing all that we are asking of it? or should I consider building a 2nd identical system to help split the load? I know it would require a second BI license, but one reason we thought about doing 2 systems was just so we could have one system be dedicated to "the kids" and the 2nd one be for personal use.
Sorry about the long post... just really trying to make sure the whole situation was explained. Thanks for any advice and/or help.