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Hello CCTV forums, I am employed by a mid sized hotel in the Twin Cities in Minnesota and have come accross this site while researching a new DVR system for the property. We are currently running a PC based DVR that was purchased about 4 years ago. Throughout the time we've had this DVR, we've encountered Power Supply Issues, Hard Drive failure, overall decrease in performance and less than great technical support. The specs on this system: Mobo - gigabyte GA-P35-S3G CPU - Pentium D 3.2 Ghz processor 2 Gig RAM DVR Cards - ILDVR 3000H4C+ (3 x 8 ch, 1 x 4 ch) OS - Windows XP GFX Card - Gigabyte GeForce 7200 GS Hard Drives - Seagate ST31000525SV X 2 Seagate ST3750330SV X 2 Software - ILDVR v9.32 Over time, the DVR has become quite sluggish and we've been coming up with disk write errors on 2 specific hard drives. We have also been experiencing random system shutdowns, where for about a week, the DVR will turn itself off, sometimes it will turn on after waiting 3 minutes, other times we will have to wait about 20 minutes. This has not happened in quite some time though. While I thought it could have been due to overheating, I am pretty diligent about keeping the air intake filter free of dust and blow out any dust bunnies inside the case every 4-6 weeks, there usually aren't many. The main issues we are having with performance are as follows: Pulling up the playback search can take up to a minute to load, while reviewing playback, at times, we get very stuttered footage, moving 3-5 frames, then pausing for 1 second. Other times, when playing back on more than 1 camera, each camera will play 1 frame at a time while it waits for the next channel to play a frame. This is hit or miss, as sometimes the playback is quite smooth. Switching from multiple camera display to bringing 1 single camera full screen has a 2 second lag, switching back to multiple camera will take about 10 seconds to refresh all the cameras. The reason this is a concern, is for the first year or so, all of these actions were instant. I am faced with a couple different options, one is to purchase an entirely new DVR altogether and hopefully find a good company based in the midwest that will provide on-site installation and technical support. I am looking in to one such company that is offering an exacqVision 48 channel NVR - 4U system. quoted for about $16k Another company I am looking at is based out of New York will not provide any on-site service is from Aventura. A 48 channel DHC Commercial Series DVR for about $14k or 2 x 24 channel DHA Advanced series for a total of about $12k Considering the current server we have ran around $6 4 years ago, these all seem to be expensive options, but I do understand, you get what you pay for. I have been searching the web looking for feedback on both of these companies, and while i have not seen very much information on exacq, I have come up with a couple of negative comments on Aventura. I was hoping to find some more constructive reviews on both. This also leaves me looking for more options and open to reccomendations from this community. The second option I am looking at, is possibly upgrading our existing server, if it would be worth it. However, having a company to back up my investiment seems to be the wiser path, as while I have some experience in building PCs, I understand that a DVR server is more than just a PC, and it is something I do not have a great scope of knowledge on. I would appreciate any feedback and advice, Thanks in advance!

Thank you for the responses. The DVR ONLY runs the ILDVR server. As for the Hard Drives, last year we did replace a faulty HD and added an additional one. At that time, all of the storage HDs were formatted, but we did not format the OS Hard Drive or reload windows. I'll give that a go before we make any final decision on a purchase. As for the NVR server, we do not plan on adding any IP cameras at this time. From what I've been told by the sales rep that came out to my property, the proposed Hybrid NVR that he wants to sell us will be able to connect all of our analog cameras. https://exacq.com/downloads/spec-A-4U-Hybrid.pdf I took a look at aver and will be in contact with them. At this time, I'm keeping my options open and want to provide the best solution for my company to last many years down the road, even if that is upgrading our current PC DVR. One thing that I did not mention in my original post, which I should have and would greatly impact the decision to upgrade the existing DVR, is the playback quality. Live viewing, for the most part, is crisp and real time, no stutters, some blur, which I know is due to the cameras themselves, but faces are discernable and lettering on vehicles and such is legible. Recorded video is 30fps, quite smooth but very blurry, faces are blurred and lettering looks like a glob of color. In many cases, still captured images of a moving person are near unrecognizable; I'd have a hard time recognizing a close friend of a captured image. Is this due to the quality of the DVR card? Thanks again for your feedback