Why dedicated PC?

J

Jakubx80

n3wb
Sep 17, 2019
10
1
USA
Hello,

Noob here. I read a lot of hardware posts and I couldn't find the answer.
I get it that the forum recommends dedicated PC off eBay but what are the downsides/risks of using a home PC?
I've a pretty decent PC that was built for gaming needs a few years back. Could anyone please help me understand why it couldn't /shouldn't be used for BI?
Thank you
 
Oh, if it meets the minimum requirements it could be used but too often if the PC is not purposely bought or built for BI then it winds up being used for other tasks while trying to function simultaneously as a BI server....and it cannot perform optimally because of it.

Then the whining and the "shoulda, woulda, coulda" starts.....do yourself and BI a favor...put it on its very own PC with nothing else running except perhaps Blue Iris Tools and/or Blue Iris Update Helper.

P.S. - welcome to IPCT! :wave: Be sure to read the Cliff Notes in the Wiki !
 
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Pros of a dedicated pc:
  • Playing a game or whatever won't affect your security system (too high cpu load will start skipping video)
  • Having to reboot on your home pc won't affect your security system (downtime)
  • Tinkering with settings/upgrades won't cause downtime for the security system
 
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Thank you.

I perhaps should have provided a bit more background.
It's a house security system (3 to 4 cams max) mostly used to monitor packages dropped off during the day and cars/shed/house entrances at night. I never use my desktop for anything else during those times and when I do turn on a game every once and a while, it's not a concern to me that I'd need to turn BI off.

Are there any hacking concerns, such that BI could give access to the documents stored on my PC?
 
Jakubx80 said:
Hello,

Noob here. I read a lot of hardware posts and I couldn't find the answer.
I get it that the forum recommends dedicated PC off eBay but what are the downsides/risks of using a home PC?
I've a pretty decent PC that was built for gaming needs a few years back. Could anyone please help me understand why it couldn't /shouldn't be used for BI?
Thank you
Click to expand...
Spend the 100 bux on a dedicated pc, perform a clean windows install using the ms media creation tool. Other software packages can interfere with BI causing issues with recording or crashing. You always want a clean system.
 
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Jakubx80 said:
Thank you.

I perhaps should have provided a bit more background.
It's a house security system (3 to 4 cams max) mostly used to monitor packages dropped off during the day and cars/shed/house entrances at night. I never use my desktop for anything else during those times and when I do turn on a game every once and a while, it's not a concern to me that I'd need to turn BI off.

Are there any hacking concerns, such that BI could give access to the documents stored on my PC?
Click to expand...

I run BI 4 on a ESXi Win 8.1 VM with 2 dedicated dual threaded cores. Homeseer runs there as well. Uses about 18% of the CPU with maybe 7 cameras-- maybe hits 40% at times with my settings. I am adding some more cameras and maybe moving in BI5-- so we will see how it does. BI and windows running on bare metal has it's advantages (HW acceleration is easier)- but it is another machine to maintain. I like to ensure something like BI is running on reliable hardware so I would opt for ECC memory (Xeon) and some harddrive redundancy (RAID 0 minumum). That makes it not cheap-- so running a hypervisor on it and sharing it with other OSes and functions makes sense for me. Others probably find generic processor and MB to be stable-- I might just be paranoid....
 
wpiman said:
I run BI 4 on a ESXi Win 8.1 VM with 2 dedicated dual threaded cores. Homeseer runs there as well. Uses about 18% of the CPU with maybe 7 cameras-- maybe hits 40% at times with my settings. I am adding some more cameras and maybe moving in BI5-- so we will see how it does. BI and windows running on bare metal has it's advantages (HW acceleration is easier)- but it is another machine to maintain. I like to ensure something like BI is running on reliable hardware so I would opt for ECC memory (Xeon) and some harddrive redundancy (RAID 0 minumum). That makes it not cheap-- so running a hypervisor on it and sharing it with other OSes and functions makes sense for me. Others probably find generic processor and MB to be stable-- I might just be paranoid....
Click to expand...

as I've said before, yes stability is desired but this isn't NASA. There's no real justifiable need for the ECC or Xeon. Yes, use them if they're free and available but no need to scout them specifically. Also if it has to reboot once a month, I'm ok with that. (Here's where I could go on a rant about the instability of the Windows OS but it will trigger some people like a strobelight. lol....)

imho, YES you could run BI on your gaming system as when it's really needed then you likely won't be gaming. Trying to predict the future here though is pretty easy in that there will be glitches here and there and you'll be searching through the marshy weeds for the cause and the solution. To me, that hassle alone is enough to justify $150 for a decent i7 off lease system from ebay. I even went the extra step and mounted another 27" monitor above my desk where the display constantly rotates. I actually use the recordings more than I ever thought I would. For example, just today I found a recycle bin on my curb (we just got new ones YESTERDAY also) and I went back and found that at about 920 this morning they came and dropped them off again. This isn't a time that I am worried about anything nefarious happening (I actually am home officed) so why would I want to grab the video? "Because I can." :)
 
Mikk36 said:
Raid 0 is not redundant at all. In fact, it's worse than a single drive.
Click to expand...

Yes. I stand corrected. I meant Raid 1 minimum. I set up ZFS on my NAS so long ago and haven't had any issues (knock on wood). I think this is technically a RAID 60 here...


[user@nas ~]$ zpool status

pool: tank

state: ONLINE

scan: scrub repaired 0B in 2h50m with 0 errors on Sun Sep 1 04:50:03 2019

config:


NAME STATE READ WRITE CKSUM

tank ONLINE 0 0 0

raidz2-0 ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_23D3JZUAS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_HDWD130_461ZGR8GS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_23DER83GS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_HDWD130_4620K40GS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_83O2GRAKS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_HDWD130_46209S9GS ONLINE 0 0 0

raidz2-1 ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_83O2GRYKS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_HDWD130_46209RZGS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_83O2GSLKS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_HDWD130_85DATG5GS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_83O2GTBKS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_HDWD130_4620JUNGS ONLINE 0 0 0

raidz2-2 ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_83O2JLNKS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_HDWD130_85EB6W3GS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_93H57EJKS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_HDWD130_461Z9GRGS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_DT01ACA300_Y44TZPWGS ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-TOSHIBA_HDWD130_85EB6W7GS ONLINE 0 0 0

logs

mirror-3 ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-INTEL_SSDSC2BA100G3_BTTV4222016H100FGN-part1 ONLINE 0 0 0

ata-INTEL_SSDSC2BA100G3_BTTV422203UF100FGN-part1 ONLINE 0 0 0


errors: No known data errors
 
area651 said:
as I've said before, yes stability is desired but this isn't NASA. There's no real justifiable need for the ECC or Xeon. Yes, use them if they're free and available but no need to scout them specifically. Also if it has to reboot once a month, I'm ok with that. (Here's where I could go on a rant about the instability of the Windows OS but it will trigger some people like a strobelight. lol....)

imho, YES you could run BI on your gaming system as when it's really needed then you likely won't be gaming. Trying to predict the future here though is pretty easy in that there will be glitches here and there and you'll be searching through the marshy weeds for the cause and the solution. To me, that hassle alone is enough to justify $150 for a decent i7 off lease system from ebay. I even went the extra step and mounted another 27" monitor above my desk where the display constantly rotates. I actually use the recordings more than I ever thought I would. For example, just today I found a recycle bin on my curb (we just got new ones YESTERDAY also) and I went back and found that at about 920 this morning they came and dropped them off again. This isn't a time that I am worried about anything nefarious happening (I actually am home officed) so why would I want to grab the video? "Because I can." :)
Click to expand...

I am probably a bit paranoid..... I also like being able to log into the BIOS of a machine remotely so if I need to do a complete OS reload from a remote site I can.

I don't have a gaming system. I did a demo of the Oculus headsets at a function recently and thought about getting their gaming one-- so I might build one.

I run Windows 8.1 and it has been pretty stable for me. I shut off the OS updates automatically and just run BI and Homeseer. I think I have had a problem with it maybe once that required a reboot. It might have even just been a reboot of Homeseer. The virtual hardware is probably pretty generic-- so I don't think driver issues are of any concern.
 
Ok heres a good question - why blue iris over a dedicated NVR? Everyone on this forum tends to use BI and I just don't quite get it.
 
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CastleSurveillance said:
Ok heres a good question - why blue iris over a dedicated NVR? Everyone on this forum tends to use BI and I just don't quite get it.
Click to expand...
There are a few different threads dedicated to this topic but they're hard to find (IMO) using the forum's search feature. If you do a Google search for "site://ipcamtalk.com blue iris vs nvr" they'll show up.
 
CastleSurveillance said:
So I notice this thread is quite old. I skimmed through it.

Do you believe it still is true with advances in NVR?
Click to expand...

There's also been "advances" (improvements, new features, etc.) in BI as well during that time frame, so IMO, BI is still superior to a NVR.
 
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