NAS and surveillance advice

fobose · 26 Oct 2020 at 22:26

Street lighting is something I have out the front, there is even one about 4m from my front door.

I will have a look at those 4k camera's in a bit more detail tomorrow. My only concern (unless the images that come up online are incorrect) is they don't have the protective dome on them? My garage eaves are only about 2.4m high so could potentially be hit.

fobose · 27 Oct 2020 at 09:12

I will see how I get on with the 2MP one you are selling. It's a cheaper way to find out if its any good in the location I plan for it (screwed on to the under side of the garage eave). Hopefully I can fit a piece of timber in place above the underside of the eave to give it something solid to screw in to. I also have the potential option to mount it under my porch outside my front door, I've been planning a cable route to that location.

P.S I had not noticed the 4MP one I mentioned was only B/W at night, whoops. Thanks for pointing that out.

fobose · 30 Oct 2020 at 11:16

@WJA96 I am thinking I might just buy a NVR rather than a high end NAS as an all in one. I was looking at this unit (Dahua DHI-NVR4108HS-8P-4KS2 Lite) but I have no knowledge of these types of devices so if you have any input or other recommendations it would be greatly appreciated!

I think I would only ever have 4 camera's maximum (5MP max I would have thought) but perhaps an 8 channel would be best for future proofing, or if I wanted to add a few internal camera's (unlikely though).

fobose · 30 Oct 2020 at 15:05

Oh wow, that is a bit sneaky! If you are able to check there are not any little 'gotcha's' without too much bother that would be handy but don't worry if you CBA.

I was using the gDMSS plus app for some reason. I've just installed the DMSS one to try, so far looks good.

Re the Synology NVR-416, I can't seem to find this available at all. Did you happen to mean the NVR-216? I've not done much research but I think this might have been replaced by the NVR1218 - the specs on this look a bit dated too. Note - I know nothing about NAS and have probably just fallen down the rabbit hole of 'I need a quad core, 8 GB RAM minimum', which probably surpasses my actual needs. I really hate spending money on things that I end up wishing I spent just a little more (especially for future proofing).

Hmm I am in two minds again now. It seems Synology do give some good supporting for the surveillance features which sounds good. It would be nice to have an all in one but will result in me spending A LOT of money I think.

--

On another note. I've finally found the cahoonas to drill the pilot hole for the next stage of the install. To be fair I hadn't quite decided where I would drill through. A load of measurements were involved before I decided on the below, it worked out perfectly where I wanted it to appear.

The original plan was to get it behind-ish the gutter down pipe, I would have needed to chase out a stud on the inside to run the cables across from under the power socket and I didn't think that would be a good thing to do (probably against electrical code too).

Now I am just waiting for my larger diameter drills to arrive (tomorrow hopefully).

fobose · 1 Nov 2020 at 12:05

My install is coming along, trying to work in-between the rain showers yesterday was a right pain. I've now run the 3 external cables. Where the cables come up behind the AC unit, I've run them in flexible conduit and then in to a terminal box, covering the hole entry point. Looks really neat and the flex conduit is hidden behind the guttering down pipe.

I've just finished installing a data point on both ends of one of the cables entering the garage. I've tested it via plugging in the 2MP dome camera in to it. Seems to be working

*edit*
Second cable to garage now connected up both ends.

Cable entry point (3 cables - 1 spare for potential home/office in the future):

Garage loft (2x data points - 1 as a backup)

Office cable entry. I've run out of data points to finish today. There is 50m on the other end of the cable which isn't connected.

fobose · 2 Nov 2020 at 17:39

I've finally fitted the camera on the garage. It gives a pretty good view of the front of my house and drive. I've not setup any privacy screens yet (top left windows/doors etc).

@WJA96 - I am really happy with the camera, has worked out very well. I have a question for you with regards to the water tight connector for the network cable. Am I right to assume this is not needed if its sitting above where the camera is in my pic below? It was bone dry up there when I placed a piece of timber down to screw the camera in to. I just wasn't sure about humidity etc.

Network point fascia arrived in the post today:

Garage cam installed tonight:

Camera view:

fobose · 3 Nov 2020 at 21:21

Brilliant, thanks

Managed to bring the cable reel in the house and upstairs to the office so I could crimp a RJ45 on the end and test the cable. I've only got one of those cheap £10 testers but at least I know the cable is not broken.

Expanding foam now in entry holes.

I left it for a few hours to cure. The network point fascia is now installed and first fill in the entry holes. I had previous made good the wall around the network point and painted around it (+ plug socket) this morning before work. I will paint the whole wall when I am finished filling.

2x APC surge protectors also arrived this morning so I will figure out a way to connect them to earth, possibly through the earth pin of a 3 pin plug.

fobose · 9 Nov 2020 at 15:14

Hello again. I am still thinking lots about what I want to do with regards to NAS or dedicated NVR. Leaning towards a decent NAS atm.

If I went with a Synology DS1520+, can I just start out with 2x hard drives in them for now using SHR?

*edit* Ah ignore, I've just realised someone already said this is possible on the first page of my thread!

fobose · 11 Nov 2020 at 09:26

@WJA96 Hello again and sorry to bother you

I am thinking about putting an IP camera in my single garage (ceiling mounted) which is in total darkness most of the time so I am thinking I will need an IR camera. The two cheapest ones I can find are these two and I was leaning towards the dome as I think that might be better for my garage as often I create a lot of dust in there.

Would these be good options or do you have any other recommendations for this purpose?

Dahua IPC-HDBW2531EP-S-S2-360 £89.21 inc delivery (dome camera)
Dahua DH-IPC-HDW2531TM-AS-S2 £90.18 inc delivery (turret camera)

fobose · 14 Nov 2020 at 15:55

I decided to give the dome camera I mention above a punt. I also ordered a Dahua IPC-HFW2531SP-S-S2-360 bullet camera for about the same price. The dome seems to fit the bill nicely. I thought about swapping it with the 2MP one on the outside of the garage but realized the new camera is smaller and I didn't want to make more holes.

I can't fit the bullet camera in the garden yet as I don't have the right size junction box (PFA134). I have ordered a couple from the rain forest (half the price?) with free delivery thinking the camera's wouldn't turn up until late next week.

Anyway, here be today's install:

fobose · 19 Nov 2020 at 09:43

Finally got my last camera (Dahua IPC-HFW2531SP-S-S2-360) installed late yesterday evening.

The night time visibility is not too good, perhaps I need to aim the camera up a bit more (I was avoiding more windows on the block of flats). I do have a street light (currently out) behind the brick wall though which lights up the garden with a dim light so I will wait for that to be repaired before I make any changes.

@WJA96 I kinda wish I paid the extra and bought another TIOC camera! Although probably unnecessary for this area.

fobose · 19 Nov 2020 at 12:52

I thought it might be IR reflection from the tree. It's a small apple tree that my wife is super keen to keep (she planted it a few years ago). I will no doubt move the camera a fence post along when the tree gets too big for the camera's location.

Hah, I had not even considered putting the camera upside down. My only concern would be the micro SD slot would be vulnerable to the elements (granted it 'should' be waterproof). I had found the shutter settings yesterday and that did help, I just set it to default again as I wanted to get to playing Mad Max. I will have another look when I get home from work!

I could potentially move the camera up but I don't think I will, I had a 2.4m piece of timber that I cut down to 2.1m so it wasn't sticking up over the hedge (it's bolted to the posts about 300mm off the ground). It looks quite discrete and blends in with the background.

I was not able to fully install it how I wanted. I am not sure if you can see it easily but I had to use the bottom entry on the junction box (came with a gland that fit the cat6 cable perfectly) and then the cable goes through the timber and in to a black junction box/round conduit on the other side for protection. I wanted to have the cable fully hidden and going through the back of the dahua junction box but the PFA134 box is tiny and there was no way I would fit the waterproof connector in with the cat6 cable entering through the back. In hindsight I should have used cat5.... but this cable will potentially go to a home office in the future so I could run cat5 out to this camera in future.

The TIOC bullet camera is a beast compared to this tiny little thing. I was shocked when this one came through the post. If the street light does not help I will probably replace it with the TIOC camera. Would the turret TIOC version be ok mounted on to a piece timber like the below or would it not be suited (thinking of rain/spiders etc)?

fobose · 19 Nov 2020 at 17:00

WJA96 said:
Yes, a turret TiOC would be fine. Backlight settings make a huge difference though. Are you using SSA on the TiOCs? I don't understand why they don't ship with that on as standard.

Ok thanks, will see how it goes. The estate management company have been useless for getting the street light sorted. I have just enabled SSA on the TIOC camera. It doesn't make any difference that I can see. I will leave it on though.

Tell a lie, I can noticed a difference all of a sudden. It looks a lot easy to see the darker areas of the garden which were pitch black before.

fobose · 25 Nov 2020 at 07:19

@Armageus How are you getting on with your 1520+? I have been watching the prices fluctuate the last few weeks. I am waiting on Black Friday before I either buy the 920+ or 1520+. Did you put any M2 NVME drives in yours for the read/write cache, and if so which ones?

I am thinking about using 2x WD Blue SN550 250GB as they seem quite well priced.

fobose · 25 Nov 2020 at 10:31

Thanks for the detailed reply. I was looking to do the same with regards to only starting with 3 hard drives (WD red 4TB drives look best bang for buck at the moment). I am not sure I can be bothered to go down the shucking route and hope I get lucky with a good drive. The reason I was interested in the 1520+ over the 920+ was so I could swap to SHR2 in the future when I start putting bigger drives in the system without losing so much available storage.

Hmm, I no longer have a UPS so that'll be another cost if I go down that route. Maybe I could add the NVME drives at a later date once funds allow for a UPS. I will be using the system for surveillance too so I am not sure if having the SSD for write cache would be a good thing in that respect.

With regards to the 1Gb ethernet issue, that did put me off until I watched a linus video where he uses link aggregation to increase to 4Gb ethernet. I would need a switch that could support this though so again, another cost if the 1Gb ethernet becomes a problem for me in the future.

fobose · 28 Nov 2020 at 20:43

I ended up buying a DS1520+ earlier this evening with 3x 8TB WD gold drives. Excited

fobose · 2 Dec 2020 at 12:40

This has arrived today! :O

What are your thoughts on file systems to use with the DS1520+? I am going to use it for data storage and surveillance station. Should I setup two partitions, BTRFS for my file storage, EXT4 for the surveillance recordings?

fobose · 2 Dec 2020 at 15:18

Armageus said:
Personally I'd create a single BTRFS volume, but then create a dedicated CCTV Share - fairly sure you can turn off the advanced features (checksumming/copy on write) for specific shares, so e.g. the CCTV wouldn't need those.

Excellent, thanks for the quick response! I have now done this and you are right, you can turn off the advance features which I have now done this on the recording folder.

Armageus said:
In most cases aggregating 4x1Gb will not give you 4Gb transfer speed, but does allow 4 machines to each get 1Gb performance at the same time.

Oh, I obviously didn't look in to that enough. It still sounds a lot better than only 1Gb port if I experience any bottle necks in the future.

WJA96 said:
You shouldn’t need to touch anything in the menus apart from the Time, IP address, Smart Plan and IVS menus. Most other options are already optimum. Once you get your storage, then we can talk streaming resolutions, frame and bit rates.

@WJA96, are you able to advise on streaming resolutions etc as you mention above now that I have my recording system?

fobose · 5 Dec 2020 at 09:44

@WJA96 are you able to help with regards to the frame and bit rates for my 5MP cameras (and the 1x 2MP one I bought from you)? Is it also best to run at the maximum FPS possible?

I have currently set the iframe interval to match the FPS (20 on the 3x 5MP camera's, 25 on the 2MP). The bitrate option says 'maximum' bitrate. Is this variable depending on what is happening on the camera (lots of movement = increased bitrate)?

fobose · 5 Dec 2020 at 10:56

WJA96 said:
You have options on the bit rates and personally I’d only run at 15fps because that gives smooth-enough motion when you’re recording 24/7. If you have hard disk capacity to burn then sure, run them at 25fps or 30fps because every extra frame captured is one where you might get that ‘perfect’ still image of the intruder. But it literally doubles your recording space to go from 15fps to 30fps.

On bit rate, on the Wiz Sense cameras (TiOC) then they have decent CPUs in them so use Variable Bit Rate (VBR). That will give you the optimum image quality. On the 2MP colour night vision, you want something in excess of 2500. Anything above that is basically wasted. But try VBR on that too and so long as you don’t see sparklies or tearing on the recorded images then I’d leave it in VBR.

Thanks for the tip re the FPS. I will put them all at 15 FPS and see how it goes. I would rather not waste lots of storage if I can help it. I have also set to only keep 7 days worth of footage for now.

I have now set all the cameras to VBR. I've been experimenting with the TIOC's maximum bitrate and 5000 seems about the sweet spot for 15FPS. I have set the 2MP to 2750 for now until I can test it.

I am still waiting for my extra 2 camera licenses to come through the post before I can add the other two camera's to synology's surveillance station. The only camera that is supported properly is the 2MP one. I've contacted synology to see if the other 3 Dahua's I have can be added.

WJA96 said:
@fobose - any reason you went for the Gold over purple WD drives? The purples are optimised to write data rather than read it, which is what almost all other types of hdd are optimised for.

I was looking at the red and purple drives originally, then spotted the higher MTBF and longer warranty on the gold drives so I went for those. If that was the wrong choice then whoops