Costco Swann 8Ch

[Danzer 0]

Hi,

 

I'm new here, but have been a reader for quite some time now. I recently ordered this: http://www.costco.com/Swann-8-Channel-HD-NVR-Security-System-with-2TB-Hard-Drive-and-4-1080p-IP-Cameras.product.100027599.html and it should arrive later today. This is a purchase I made for my residence and it being the first camera system I've had, I was wondering was are some do's and don'ts on installation/setup/etc. If the system proves well for what I need, I will be purchasing some more cameras. I've read that this is actually a 3mp camera, however the Swann NVR doesn't allow it to record at that resolution. I plan on trying this out and since it's from Costco, I won't have a problem of returning it during the 90 day period.

 

Also, would anybody like me to post any picture of the unit? I want to give and receive as much information as possible. Furthermore, I plan on installing a similar unit at my employer's commercial building plaza(s). I bought this unit as a test and so we'll see how it works out. I understand that this is a Hikvision, just re-branded. For those of you who own Hikvision products, what are some pros and cons? The price seems unbelievable to me for what's on the specs sheet. What's the life cycle on these bad boys? Have read that relatively reliable camera systems should last anywhere from 5-10 years. And the great thing with IP based cameras is that you can easily switch them out if they go bad. My work place has analog and I plan on switching them out for IP.

 

Sorry to ramble a bit, but this is my first purchase and am a bit excited to try them out.

 

Thanks!

[zikronix 0]

Hi,

 

I'm new here, but have been a reader for quite some time now. I recently ordered this: http://www.costco.com/Swann-8-Channel-HD-NVR-Security-System-with-2TB-Hard-Drive-and-4-1080p-IP-Cameras.product.100027599.html and it should arrive later today. This is a purchase I made for my residence and it being the first camera system I've had, I was wondering was are some do's and don'ts on installation/setup/etc. If the system proves well for what I need, I will be purchasing some more cameras. I've read that this is actually a 3mp camera, however the Swann NVR doesn't allow it to record at that resolution. I plan on trying this out and since it's from Costco, I won't have a problem of returning it during the 90 day period.

 

Also, would anybody like me to post any picture of the unit? I want to give and receive as much information as possible. Furthermore, I plan on installing a similar unit at my employer's commercial building plaza(s). I bought this unit as a test and so we'll see how it works out. I understand that this is a Hikvision, just re-branded. For those of you who own Hikvision products, what are some pros and cons? The price seems unbelievable to me for what's on the specs sheet. What's the life cycle on these bad boys? Have read that relatively reliable camera systems should last anywhere from 5-10 years. And the great thing with IP based cameras is that you can easily switch them out if they go bad. My work place has analog and I plan on switching them out for IP.

 

Sorry to ramble a bit, but this is my first purchase and am a bit excited to try them out.

 

Thanks!

 

you have more than 90 days on security systems

Edited August 22, 2013 by Guest

[Danzer 0]

Here are some pictures I snapped upon arrival. I couldn't wait to open the NVR and check what kind of harddrive it came with. My guess was spot on. These drives are horrible for continuous read and write. I plan on changing it to a Western Digital Black 2Tb.

 

[JoeyJoey 0]

What is wrong with the WD Green drive?

I have read where they might be exactly the same as the Red drives, with different firmware.

 

The NVR is not taxing the HD at all.

[zikronix 0]

What is wrong with the WD Green drive?

I have read where they might be exactly the same as the Red drives, with different firmware.

 

The NVR is not taxing the HD at all.

 

 

Nothing is wrong with the green drive....some day some one will listen, The information I post is fact. and here it is again.

 

Green drives are fine. Low heat, low rpm is perfectly fine. A lot of manufacturers have moved to only making intellipower type drives and not stating the rpm. Additionally They are hardly any slower for sequential I/O. Maybe 10%; something you will never notice.

 

They are slower when it comes to latency/IOps though, but sequential I/O is very good for 5400rpm and 5900rpm drives. Their data density is so high, they even beat 10.000rpm disks with Sequential I/O, even though they only spin half as fast the data density makes up for it. So the preferred medium to store large bulky files on (i.e. dvr), is 5400/5900rpm drive. 7200rpm+ drives are quickly becoming less useful and eventually will disappear. The new WD Green's have at least 1TB platters, so 1-platter for 1.0TB, 2 for 2TB and 3 for 3TB. The speed doesn't increase with the number of platters, but it increases as the data density increases. Thus higher-capacity platters will result in higher sequential I/O.

 

This is why almost damn near everything has been running on 5900 rpm drives. An example of this is WD Red drives the "highly recomended" drives for NAS are identical from a physical stand point as the greens. A couple of tweaks to the firmware, and a new product line was born. Except its the SAME product!

 

For reference the green does park the head quicker than the red drives, other than that there is no difference between the red and green drives. In fact western digital and other manufactuers used to have a utility to adjust the tler timing but they killed it off in the later firmware drives due to it was actually costing them money. Anyway the tler settings wont affect you in this for what you are doing. You're more likely going to get a noisy bearing then have a head crash.

[Danzer 0]

What is wrong with the WD Green drive?

I have read where they might be exactly the same as the Red drives, with different firmware.

 

The NVR is not taxing the HD at all.

 

Maybe it's just from my experience, but I've had a few Greens and have had them slow down or completely die on me. That's why I stick to Black. I haven't tried the Red yet so I might give that a try. Again, I just prefer Black drives. I'll give this Green another go though since it's already in there.

[JoeyJoey 0]

What is wrong with the WD Green drive?

I have read where they might be exactly the same as the Red drives, with different firmware.

 

The NVR is not taxing the HD at all.

 

Maybe it's just from my experience, but I've had a few Greens and have had them slow down or completely die on me. That's why I stick to Black. I haven't tried the Red yet so I might give that a try. Again, I just prefer Black drives. I'll give this Green another go though since it's already in there.

 

No problem.

What you could do in your case as you're getting a new drive, is the put your new Black drive as the primary and have the green one as a secondary.

Then go into the settings and set drive mirroring up, so if you have a failure of the primary the data still will accessable from the secondary drive.

[Danzer 0]

No problem.

What you could do in your case as you're getting a new drive, is the put your new Black drive as the primary and have the green one as a secondary.

Then go into the settings and set drive mirroring up, so if you have a failure of the primary the data still will accessable from the secondary drive.

 

Oh wow, I didn't know I could mirror drives in this NVR. I'm really glad you told me that. Thanks!

 

I haven't connected anything yet, just preoccupied at the moment, so I'll give it a go next week.

[JoeyJoey 0]

You can also mirror to a network NFS/iSCSI drive.