What kind of mini PC would you recommend for a Surveillance Setup 9x4K cams

[WowaDriver]

Hello everyone. As the thread name says, I have to build a small computer or use a ready-made one on which Xpenology is installed to monitor a site with 9x 4K cameras. The focus is therefore only on Surveillance Station.

 

I once tried a Lenovo M700 - 10J0-S3C900 with the following specifications:

 

Processor: Intel i5-6400T QuadCore 4x 2.2GHz (max. Turbo 2.8GHz) 6MB SmartCache

Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 530

Memory: 8GB DDR4 RAM

Hard disk: 256GB SSD

 

A WD MyBook 8TB external HDD with USB3.0 served as the recording medium. The results are rather sobering. When I open the DSCam app with 6 cameras, it feels like it takes an eternity until the streams are visible. The test was recorded in 24/7 mode with additional motion detection.

 

I don't think the network is a problem here as the cameras only have a 100MB interface. I think it's more likely to be the hard disk. Do you think it would be better to record on a large SSD or NVMe?

 

Thanks for help! 

[IG-88]

for a estimate you can look into what synology suggests or say is possible for a certain model and check the hardware thats build in

https://www.synology.com/en-global/products/DVA#specs

https://kb.synology.com/en-global/DSM/tutorial/What_kind_of_CPU_does_my_NAS_have

 

i guess DVA3221 will do it but it needs a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (afair synology has hard coded that into some parts of the software)

according to the specs from above a dva1622 (just a gemini lake with intel qsv active in use) can do 8 x 4k so with some newer/beefier hardware with qsv working in dsm it might be possible to use dva1622

"80 FPS @ 4K (3840x2160), 8 Channels" - i guess thats 8 channels with 4k and 10 fps each channel, might be more cam's if you lower fps or use better hardware then original gemini lake in dva1622 (or capture lower resolution on some cameras might also help)

i guess you will need the intel qsv support to have h264/h265 decoded for that amount of data

 

there also a 8 camera limit in the default config in dva's (and extending that needs some extra "license" you can't buy from synology)

 

On 11/28/2023 at 9:11 PM, WowaDriver said:

I don't think the network is a problem here as the cameras only have a 100MB interface. I think it's more likely to be the hard disk. Do you think it would be better to record on a large SSD or NVMe?

 

if you take the compute power given from synology for the dva1622 it can handle you can calculate i little bit

3840x2160 x 3 (base resolution x3 because of 24bit color) and 80 fps oer all cams is ~2000 MB/s, as its h.264 encoded let say 0.07 for the compression than its still 140 MByte/s

if thats correct then a normal single hdd will be on its limit as its in different files on the disks and it also need iops performance (and thats low on hdd's), i guess it at least would need some raid to have more performance

beside this a single 1G nic will max out at ~110 MByte/s so a single 1G nic might also be a problem

as the original dva1622 only comes with two disks slots and one 1G port my "estimate" might be to pessimistic and synology can evaluate from practical tests that a normal hdd (or raid1) and 1G is enough for 80fps@4k

 

imho when taking some headroom into account it should be more like a raid5 and at least 2x1G nic to handle 9 x 4k (10fps) as h.264 stream

digging into the recorded data while still recording all channels ... yes might need some additional headroom to still keep things smooth and running

 

maybe some people with systems already running can add here?

but you guess 9 cam's @4k might be a little over the usual size

 

as commented above look up what specs/system a regulars synology or qnap system would need and dont forget to read small print as there might be some marketing involved (like only recording or having ssd/raid to use full spec)

also check google/youtube for people commenting about that kind of system (multi 4k cam's and using regular synology/qnap for it)