Starting to build DVR systems, helpful insight requested

[AMI 0]

Good evening all, I've been trolling this forum for a while and decided to pop my head up to say hi.

 

I recently started a small business to build Home Theater PCs when I decided that I could, in theory, expand my market a little into the CCTV and maybe high performance areas as well.

 

My basic systems are as follows:

 

AMD Athlon 64 3000+

1gb PC3200 DDR Ram

80gb main hard drive.

 

I have been looking at mostly Geovision and I-View DVR cards but I am open to any others

 

When it comes to mass storage I like to run Raid 5, and with the board I have I can get 1.2TB of data with 4 western digital 400GB hard drives

 

If I need more I can run a couple of options with raid cards and get upwards of 6TB

 

Obviously I think I am way over doing my hard drives but then again, I've never built one so I'm not sure how much space it takes.

 

The system I will be building first is an 8 camera system for a local business. Obviously if it fails I am out a lot of time and most importantly, money.

 

I will also be posting an advice thread in the cams section because that is where I am really lost. I'm pretty sure I-View will be my DVR card assuming their software package is half as good as the one I got to test drive today.

[Verite 0]

What kind of frame rate are we looking at in 8 channels? Storage space varies depending on frame rate and resolution, not number of cameras. If it's 30 frame per channel for 8 channels 1 TB is more than enough if you set the recording to motion or countinuous only during business hours.

[rory 0]

here is an example with a PC based DVR:

 

Im using 720x480 on 2 cameras, and 320x240 on 2 others, 3 set to max, and 1 of the 320x240's to 8pps, .. card is a 120pps card, and im getting 10 days. 2 Of the cameras get constant motion mon-sat 24/7, the other 2 only during office hours ... 160GB HDD, includes 10GB for OS, rest for video ...

[AMI 0]

I am not 100% on the systems yet

 

I would like a 120+ fps card going either 24/7 or motion only

 

The shop owner isnt the most observant person in the world and I suggested that they allow for a full month of recording just in case anything came up missing.

 

God knows I use hard drive space like its my job, so I told them I would buy back any hdds that were not needed.

[rory 0]

yeah they are alot harder to get our hands on down here, especially the SATA drives which you cant buy here at all.. ..

[cctv_down_under 0]

Personally would not be using a Athlon, several reasons would be chipset and cooling, make sure those HDD's are in cooling bays and use a decent HARDWARE raid controller, good to see you raiding it up though... not many do

[Jasper 0]

Rory,

 

Why would you want SATA anyway, unless it is for RAID?

The prices on PATA drives are very cheap now and none of these drives can fill up PCI bus unless they are in a RAID arrary.

 

Of course this will no longer be true when those SATA drives are put on a PCexpress bus and put into a RAID arrary?

 

Just curious

[scottj 0]

Im not Rory, but I can throw in a few comments here:

 

Primary Advantage: COST

From the perspective of a manufacturer, SATA will make it easier and less costly to design and deliver storage subsystems and computers with internal storage. This, in turn, may result in lower prices for you, the user.

 

Removable Storage is very popular in the DVR market today.

When it comes to enterprise storage systems, SATA has one big advantage over PATA: Its specs provide for hot-plugging.

 

SATA offers standardized support for tagged command queuing, a performance enhancement typically found on SCSI and Fibre Channel drives.

 

Overall, both work fine and it is primarily a preference.

 

scottj

[rory 0]

Arent SATA drives typically much quieter?

Plus every 160GB i find online are SATA ... and same price as the regular ones anyway ..

[griffonsystems 0]

I only use Western Digital SATA for video storage - it'll be one of the first thing that breaks in a DVR so why not go with a high end reliable drive

 

i havent had one fail on me yet, knock on wood

[scottj 0]

To answer Rory, YES.....much quieter. PATA drives tend to have that high pitch squealing sound after they wear.

 

I agree with Griffon. WD SATA drives have been the most successful for us with video storage. Maxtor has proven to be horrible, Seagate is "OK", the Hitachi drives are also very stable and offer up to a 5 yr manufacturer warranty depending on the model.

 

We used 100+ 250GB drives for a large video storage array, all WD, and had one failure in the past 17 months. That is pretty good, although the RAID arrays are also high quality and offer the proper cooling.

[griffonsystems 0]

My Tivo is, i should say was, about 2yrs old and the HD failed last month - i open it up and what do i find but a crappy Maxtor - i wouldnt trust that drive in a high end dvr if it cant even survive in a tivo

 

its hard to live without tivo once you have had it.. im going through withdrawl,, one of these days ill go out and replace it.. could be this weekend but ive been saying that for weeks

[rory 0]

Its funny that at the price of the GE Security DVRs, they only use Maxtor IDE hard drives ..

[Jasper 0]

I haven't taken into account the quiet factor as I have several hard drives in my system (SATA and PATA) and what I hear over the top of all of them is the system cooling fan.

 

As the hard drive manufactures are cutting down on the production of PATA drives and ramping up production on SATA drives there are some real bargains out there right now on the PATA drives. I just bought a Seagate 250GB drive for $70 with a five year warranty.

 

I too have had problems with Maxtor drives, but have had good luck with Western Digital and Seagate. I have used Western Digitals primarily though.

 

I recently bought a 500GB SATA Hitachi and it runs quite a bit hotter and does not perform as well as my Seagate 400GB drive which has 133GB per platter compared to the Hitachi’s 100GB per platter. I would avoid buying another Hitachi 500GB drive just because of the heat issue.