Building a security camera computer system.

[sean l]

Hi everyone,

I was recently tasked with updating my company's surveillance camera computer system. I figured it would be pretty straight forward, but my boss explained to me that in his experience, using regular 7200 RPM drives simply does not cut it.

In my research, I've found most systems use "DVR compatiable hard drives", but most of them seem to just be standard 7200 RPM drives.

Does anyone have any specific drives they like to use? Should I be using 10k RPM drives, or are there specific "DVR" drives that would work best?

[helpifIcan]

Any thought of using SSD's?

[+Warwagon MVC]

7200RPM hard drives should be fine I would assume. I wouldn't use SSD that would just be expensive. I mean if DVR's can record 2 HD programs at the same time all while playing back a 3rd on a 7200RPM hard drive I would assume a security system would work just fine. Just a guess, i'm not an expert.

Although I do have a server running downstairs with 2 Logitech Wilife cameras hooked up to it. It also is running windows, a voice mail server and a webserver. it also records both feeds just fine. it records in WMV format.

You may want to look at Western Digital WD RE4 drives. A quick google search shows them recommending them for security systems.

[Burned]

^^ What he said or the WD Caviar Blacks. They have a 5 year warranty, the rest do not (green, blue...).

http://support.wdc.com/warranty/policy.asp

[+BudMan MVC]

"explained to me that in his experience, using regular 7200 RPM drives simply does not cut it."

And did he offer any logical reason for this? Because it makes no sense at all. As warwagon stated already, dvrs running crappiest drives on the market recording 2 HD while serving up 3rd.. RPM of the drive is more related access time, and sure top end write and read speeds. But I find it highly unlikely that 5400 to be honest would not be fast enough to record some video, and clearly fast enough to play it back ;)

I would think drives designed for use in 24/7x365 type solutions take other things into mind other than rpms

For example the seagate SV35 line

http://www.seagate.c...cs/sv35_series/

Seagate? SV35 Series? hard drives offer high capacities, durable reliability and performance tuned to the high-write workloads of today?s security video surveillance systems.

If you look at a drive in normal PC or even a Server it would be unlikely that its writing 24x7x365, etc..

I would think if you went with a major players HDD that is stated to be designed for video surveillance systems how could your boss fault you?

Or the WDC AV-GP line - designed again specifically for this use!! And they don't even state the rpm of the drive ;)

They just say;

IntelliPower

A fine-tuned balance of spin speed, transfer rate, and caching algorithms designed to deliver both significant power savings and solid performance.

http://www.wdc.com/w...2879-701250.pdf

Says they can do 12 streams at once, etc..

They are optimized with SilkStream? technology to capture data from up to 12 simultaneous HD video streams. And with 24x7 operation, low temperature, and best-in-class reliability, WD AV-GP hard drives are ideal for DVR/PVR and video surveillance applications. 3-year limited warranty.

Higher rpm drives tend to run hotter and be noiser and use more power - not really a good thing for something that is designed to be on 24x7x365 and writing to the drive.. I know for sure when hacking tivos back in the day and upgrading them with larger drives, etc. went with the 5400s vs the 7200 because they ran cooler - and more than handles 2 streams of data, etc.

[episode]

  On 26/01/2012 at 16:46, sean l said:

Hi everyone,

I was recently tasked with updating my company's surveillance camera computer system. I figured it would be pretty straight forward, but my boss explained to me that in his experience, using regular 7200 RPM drives simply does not cut it.

Your boss doesn't know what he's talking about.

5400 RPMs are fine, let alone 7200.

How many feeds are you looking to record at once? Have you looked into just getting a standalone DVR unit instead of building a computer? I've done it both ways for companies and you can't beat the value/features offered by a standalone solution.

[sean l]

We will be recording 16 feeds at the moment, with plans to add up to 32.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with the fact that even 5400 rpm drives are enough. I had called a local company that specializes in surveillance systems, and I heard him toss out the phrase "DVR grade hard drive". My research showed that most of the systems you can buy built is pretty much standard stuff, but we've had quite a few hard drives fail on us the past few months. The camera server in question operates at a jewelry store, so it is imparative that the system functions flawlessly.

I thought that maybe there was something I was missing in my research, perhaps we've just had bad luck with out hard drives?

[+BudMan MVC]

"perhaps we've just had bad luck with out hard drives? "

They fail!! Where they all bought at the same time, then its likely they could all fail around the same time if they came from the same batch, etc.

Really 32 feeds for 1 jewelery store?? How large is this freaking place?? Must be the size of freaking costco or something?

When I think of a jewelery store -- they are normally quite small. Even the large stand alone Jareds seems small for even 16 feeds let alone 32.

So your feeding 16 to 1 disks?? I don't think they are rated for that - the WDC one for example says its rated for 12. So that clearly could be the problem? Need to lower the number of streams to each disk.

[sean l]

My boss owns the entire building. Currently we are the only tenant, but its a jewelry store, across the hall is a pawn shop, up stairs is a camera repair shop, and there are still 4 floors currently under renovation that will need something in the near future. Considering someone could have access to the jewelry store from anywhere in the building, we need to make sure to keep everything covered.

I recommended to him that he uses multiple servers, however he wasn't too happy with that idea. As far as I know the software we use doesn't allow for cameras to be recording to different drives, but that is an idea. I'll have to look into that. Thanks :)

[+BudMan MVC]

Heres the thing -- lets say you could write 16 or even 32 channels to 1 drive.. Even with a 3TB disk that is not going to give you a lot of storage time with any sort of resolution.

Doing a quick search for 32 channel I found this

http://www.camtechsu.../ltd2432md.html

Looking at the specs it supports up to 8 disks.. Now can not seem to find a manual, so no idea how it writes all these channels to disk(s) -- can it write all 32 to just one? Not sure?

All I can say is that WDC disk I saw said it was rated for 12 streams.. If it could do 32, I would think they would of stated that? Not a lot of exp with these systems - but with the amount of data 32 good resolution video resolutions would be, I really don't see how you could write it to only 1 disk. I would think it have to be some sort of an array to handle that amount of data. Or specific number of streams to each disk on its own, etc.

[Dashel]

Better to create a large 'cheap' RAID10 with 7200 SATA to get the capacity and IO you are looking for.