24/7 Computer. Suggestions?

[BoomAM]

Hi.
We're heavily considering setting up a Network camera setup on our network, involving around 10 or so cameras. We already have two, some Axis 210A's, the rest of the cameras will be the same ones.
The software that comes with them allows us to record based on motion sensativity to any drive thats viewable from the computer with the software.
The spec ive come up with thus far is:

Intel C2D E6400 -- £146.86.
Asus P5N-E SLI nForce650 -- £82.24.
GeIL 2Gb DDR2 PC5300 2x1 -- £105.74.
Asus 7300GS -- £46.99.
Samsung 80Gb SATA300 -- £30.54 (For the OS/Apps).
Samsung 500Gb SATA300 -- £90.46 (Storage).
Samsung 500Gb SATA300 -- £90.46 (Storage).
Samsung 500Gb SATA300 -- £90.46 (Storage).
Lite-On 16x DVDRW DL -- £17.61.
Antec TruePower Trio 650W -- £76.36.
Antec NSK6500 Case -- £69.31
Samsung SM-205BW 20" WS TFT -- £199.74
2xZalman ZM-F2 92mm Fans -- £6.46 each, £12.92.
Belkin Cat5e 3m -- £2.29.

Total of £1001.48.

Some of the choice may seem a little odd/extreme, but we're looking at future expansion of the system.
Ive used this reasoning for these specific parts:
E6400 - Dual core, helps with encoding, and general system performance.
2Gb ram - It'll be doing encoding and handling a lot of video streams.
NF650 SLI board - The extra PCI-Ex16 slot can be used in future for SATA cards. And the processor supports allows us to drop in a quad core/more memory easyily.
1.5Tb of storage - 10 Cameras. 640x480. 30fps. Nuff said really.
650W PSU - To power everything now, and anything added.
Case - Plenty of cooling for everything while not too obstrusive.
20" TFT - So we can see everything properly.
92mm fans - To max out the cooling potential of the case.


Any suggestions/changes?
The system will literally be run 24/7/365 worst case. And best case, just the working days of the week, and half terms/year ends off.

Thanks in advance all.

 

[BoomAM]

if i was going to do a system like that id get 4 of the same drives and raid 0+1 them so its quick and has a back up. u would still have a terabyte hard drive and u would never loose your data.
Peice of mind for 60 quid is well worth it

if you want 1.5 terabytes just get 4 750gb's

The 750Gb drives are v.expensive compared to a 500Gb drive.
For the same price as a 750Gb, i could get 2x500Gbs.

Will you RAID the drives to allow for the fastest data transfer?
What about backup of those storage drives?
Video manipulation - might be advisable to go for a e6600. Bigger cache.
Faster RAM - 6400 at least, plus it will help if you OC that CPU.

Otherwise looks good - Big BoomAM is watching you

I was considering the option of stripping the three 500Gb drives. But in all fairness, the standard setup should be fast enough. So i might just set the software to record to one drive, when thats full, the next, and so on.
No video manipulation will be done. Its simply an encoding/viewing jobbo.

No OCing will be done. Again, this is a system thats going to be on almost all the time. OCing will not help.
This is not a games system. This is simply a system to act as a video server to some network cameras. So things like OCing and faster memory will do little to nothing imo for the purpose it doing.
The things im enquiring about are how stable the system will be over an extended amount of time, and if other components will be more stable/reliable than other components, and if so, suggestions.
Thanks.

 

[BoomAM]

It won't hinder it either.

I know you want the best and everything, but any reason it has to be 30 fps? You could get away with a fair few less.

I'd personally go for JPEG snap shots but that's just my choice. I know it's a lot lower spec than what you're thinking of but it does make backup easier.

OCing, even if there is headroom, speedbining on the chosen parts, ect; isnt something desired for a system designed for stability. Better to run at stock/slower speeds than its capible of.
The camera are set to record in MPEG4 format. Jpegs are taken every 4 seconds anyway, but the video recording allows to see exactely what has been done. The frame rate is 30 to keep things smooth. The bandwidth/storage requirements between 30 & 15fps is relativly small.

 

[BoomAM]

OCing will help because (a) it can be done at relatively low cost, little temp increase and very little hassle; (b) will speed up your system loads. For instance, my e6600 stays around 52 degrees full load, almost silent at over 3GHz

Im not arguing this point.
OCing can cause stability problems. Im not bothered what opinions you can come up with on that matter. Its just not gonna happen. Theres a reason why servers arnt shipped OCed.

If its encoding 30 video streams at the same time

30 streams? Who said anything about 30? Its 10.

a Quad core CPU will be able to encode more streams in parallel, so might offer better performance.

A quad core is interesting, but the cost is a bit factor there.

RAID5 is tempting, but mobo RAID 5 99% of the time uses a lot of CPU time to do the calculations. So thats not really an option unfortunatelly.

 

[BoomAM]

Fair enough, you've clearly thought about it. Best of luck with the Project

Dont get me wrong, i appriciate the input you've given. .

 

[BoomAM]

slightly OT, but if everything (servers included) were shipped overclocked then people wouldn't buy top end procs.

Completely irrelevent. Servers arnt shipped OCed not because of the reason you've given, but because increased the speed of the processor/subsystems over the manufacturers recommended threshholds, can introduce, however small and insignificant, stability issues. Which isnt something thats wanted in a computer that needs to be 100% stable under any condition.

What im wondering, is that if the processor/mobo/mem/other combo ive picked, is reliable enough to be run as a system thats going to be on almost every day of the year.

 

[BoomAM]

Ive had a brain wave! We were planning on getting a NAS as well for other needs.
I could scrap the NAS, and use the costs of that to bump the system specs on this up, so its got a Quad Core, a HW Raid controller, more/larger disks. And have a system capible of performing the occasional network disk read, and recording the video streams!
Providing i can find Win2k3 drivers for the HW chosen, should be great. Less overall cost, less space, less power usage.
And, it'd be easyier to persuade the uppers to get it if its got NAS abilitys build in!

 

[BoomAM]

Pff rubbish! Any proc can be oc'd and be 100% stable. If it's not stable then you're running too high an overclock. It's as simple as that.

I get that you're against overclocking in this application, but there's no reason why you couldn't OC and have it run stable 24/7. Anyway I'll leave it now.

Its not rubbish.
This is the problem with this forum, everyone thinks that everything should be OCed.
If you can explain why Servers are never OCed then i'll listen to the various theories that have been banding around.
But i'll state two facts.
1) You wont be able to. Servers arnt OCed for the reason ive given.
2) Im not OCing anyway!

One thing I would check before going to the expense of quad core is if it will actually make any difference. You cna prove anything with benchmarks but unless you're running multiple threads then cores will be sitting ideal and you may find the more restricted memory bandwidth has a negative impact that outweighs the benefits of quad-core.

Thats a good point.
Im hoping that Server 2K3 R2 will be smart enough to farm out general operations as required, and then i can just set the video application/recorder/whatever to use the cores i choose through Task Manager.

With the same system as previously specced, but with an Abit AWD9-Max mobo, the cheapest quad core & 4Gb of memory, theres a price bump over around £450.
But, thats sort of off-set as it would have cost around £450 for a good NAS with a few drives anyway.

 

[BoomAM]

Client licenses could be a problem if your using server 2003 as a file server, something you won't need to think about if your using a NAS device.

Site Licence.

 

[BoomAM]

just a thought,
why are you going with IP cameras ?

if you go with analogue cameras, the host card can do all the MPEG encoding for you.

we have eight cameras hosted on a scabby P4,
at 20-30fps it's more or less doing nothing all day long...


Analogue cameras can be better quality, as you'll be saving by not having the IP interface. And there is a choice of lenses.

Distance isn't a problem, a couple of them sit at the end of 100m of cat5e



.

Because we already have two of the IP Camera i found in the cupbboard, andi was impressed with their abilities.
Plus, we'd need to run more wires around the school for the analogue cameras, where as these ones can use the existing network cables.

 

[BoomAM]

we just used the existing cat5e cables too,
we put a video balun at each end and plugged the camera in.

(some of the remote ones use wireless)

obviously you need a central patch panel for your wiring,
or be able to jumper the link at each remote hub.

we then use a remote viewing application (over IP) broadcast from the monitoring PC,
so the receptionist has the video feed direct to her desk.

I'd guess if your site is wider than 200m from the cental hub,
then IP is a more flexible choice

But can the same cables still carry normal network traffic?

 

[BoomAM]

What sort of cabling do you use there?

Its mainly a curiosity thing tbh, as we've already got these Axim cameras, and we're not gonna be scrapping them.

 

[BoomAM]

I reckon the PC spec is a tad high though,
try the software out first on a normal desktop, just running the two cameras you have;
just to get a feel for the requirements.

The video encoding is done in the camera,
so I'd say a fast processor and 2Gb RAM isn't required

Two cameras with motion sensing on a test system of an XP3000 + 1Gb mem uses about 200Mb of RAM & 40% CPU time.
The system wont exclusivly be used for recording the streams. I've decided that we're gonna use it as a 3rd server. Wack 2K3 on there, add it to the AD, and the extra storage can be used for the video projects that are starting soon as well as.

Add in the cost of a UPS.

The UPS we have has the capacity for 5x the load thats on it already, so we'll just plug it into that.
The cameras though, its not really possible for us to put a UPS on each one, so we're investigating the usage of PoE, as the cameras we already have, support it.

I know you have mentioned already having a couple of IP cameras, how much will it be to buy another 8?

Hello BGB, long time no speak.
AFAIK, our supplier will sell us the Axis 210As at around £200 a piece.
But, they wont all be bought at once, at first, just the main computer suites, then over time, the other ones as well.

also, apart from the fact that you have these cameras already, is there any particular reason that you want to go with a PC based CCTV system? i ask this because in my experience, PC based DVRs are a lot more of a handful than a dedicated DVR CCTV system, and come with a lot more problems in installing, maintaining and running. You may pay a little more for it, but these things are specifically designed to run a professional CCTV system 24/7/365 on there own, and are designed so they can be operated by anyone, even without any computer experience (like IT teachers - HA! ) . You might be better asking the school to spend some money on a fully fitted CCTV system (although i thought they had one already).

Reason? Gives me a nice little project to do.
Seriously though, as stated, we already have existing IP cameras, and even before i started, they wanted to fit more.

Also, unless you're paying a fortune for the top end IP cameras, you won't be getting the same quality as industry standard CCTV cameras, especially in low light.

The ones we have, afaik, are top end ones. They have the ports built in to hook up other surveillance devices, like trip switches and other security devices, and the night mode that they have is excellent imo.

If its for you and you IT bods to use during the day, then a PC system probably wouldn't be too much hassle. If, however, its going to be used by teachers, security and other staff, and is there for surveillance during the night as well (Which in that area is pretty much essentially - i should know, i lived there all my childhood!) then you might want to get the school to crowbar the purse open and get to the chewy sterling centre.

Its basically gonna be maintained and run by myself, and only really accessed as/when required, with me controlling it for whoever wants a nosey.

Bty, im not at that school anymore, got a new job about a month ago, work out of town now at a place thats like the garden of eden compared!
Give us a shout on MSN, we'll see if we can persuade turnip to go out for a drink sometime.