Expanding storage capacity for cams footage - request input

[Virga]

I would like to expand storage capacity for cams footage.
Request suggestions on what might be good ways to do this.

In 2023 January I had started with Blue Iris on PC hardware I had at hand at the time. In 2023 December I bought three 4TB WD purple drives and they were not too expensive at that time.
I have a small form factor (SFF) PC dedicated to Blue Iris, and its ITX mobo has four SATA ports.
500 GB M2 SSD - Windows and BI
250 GB SATA drive - misc. drive for stuff I export, and BI housekeeping
Three SATA 4TB WD purple drives - contain the output from cams
The existing SFF case can only take three 3.5 inch drives plus two 2.5” drives.

My first thought would be for a new mobo with many SATA ports.
The market for enthusiast PC builders seems to have dried up over the last couple of years.
There are very few mobos available these days, and they do not seem to come with more than four SATA ports, perhaps because interest as moved to M2 drives and therefore ports.
If I were to start with a new four SATA port mobo, then I may as well as expand my existing mobo, and avail of the existing CPU, memory and Windows license.

Existing:
mobo Z690M-ITX/ax LGA 1700
CPU Intel Core i5-12600K (Passmark 27,758)
memory 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4 3000 (PC4 24000)
video card GTX 960 - one PCI slot only on mobo, this was a card at hand from years ago, don’t know if it is really helping BI
In 2024 February this mobo and CPU were a $227 upgrade from original BI starting PC, and gave me two Ethernet ports, a Windows 11 compliant PC, and Passmark score went from 5,636 to 27,758.

While the ITX mobo is currently in a SFF case, I have cases and power supplies from older builds that I could move everything to and have room for eight SATA drives.
For $50 I could get an expansion card that would go in the solitary PCI slot on the mobo, and provide SATA slots 5, 6, 7, & 8. This would mean giving up on having a video card in the BI PC.
Then I wait for a buying opportunity on more WD purple drives and meanwhile deploy additional drives from at-hand WD Gold enterprise grade 2TB and 1TB drives from years ago.

Thoughts?

Would NAS be a better way to expand storage?

*** I did read this recent thread on utilizing existing hard drives:

C

Thread '"Move [alert] clip to folder" is like a free hard drive upgrade!'

Aug 13, 2026

I want to draw attention to one of the latest features (as of 6.0.9.17) which is the ability for a confirmed alert to move the recording clip/file to another folder. Ken gets all the credit for the specific approach and implementation, but it was based on a request that I made and I think it is absolutely awesome for anyone who uses the "Continuous" video recording. Allow me to describe my situation which I suspect applies to a lot of you.

For context, I use the "Continuous" recording on all my 50+ camera streams because I often need to look far before or after a triggered alert to see...

• carteriii
• Replies: 7
• Forum: General BI Talk

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[samplenhold]

I recently rebuilt my BI server. The original one was built in 2018. One of the reasons that I did the rebuild was that I found I did not have enough storage to hold video for more than two weeks and I really needed more than that when an issue happened in September. My original system had three 10TB disks for a total of 30TB. I record continuous 24/7 for 23 installed cams. I have a few more that need to be installed when I get the time.

I ended up buying two WD 14TB purple drives. I had hoped to buy more drives, but the costs have skyrocketed. I had three WD 4TB blue drives not being used, so I put them in with the idea that they are temporary and will be replaced with purple drives when the prices come down. That gives me 70TB of drives. I split up my cams between the HDDs to balance the load. I now get a minimum of 4 weeks on each drive with some having more than 8 weeks. I need to rebalance the drives.

I also have two SSDs for long term storage. That means I have a total of ten SATA connections. I also have two M.2 drives, one PCIe 5.0 x4 for the OS and BI database and a PCIe 4.0 x4 for additional quick access storage.

I found a case that can take all ten HDDs and both SSDs. Found a good MB that has six SATA ports. Installed an HBA card to handle the other SATA ports. I have four more empty SATA ports on the HBA card, but no real space in the case. I might have room for two more drives if I change the position of the power supply.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you would like particulars.

 

[Virga]

Thanks, your response is very helpful.
What mobo did you go with?

Is a video card useful in a BI server?
The reason I ask is that in my existing mini-ITX mobo I could add a 6-SATA-port PCIE card for $68 in the solitary PCIE slot on the mobo (or an 8 SATA port card for $130).
That would bring total SATA ports to 10 or 12, but no possibility for a video card.
An at-hand ATA case (from January 2011) has 10 nos. 3.5" drive bays, and a couple more slots for drives on the floor of the case.
Plus, there are two M.2 2280 slots on the mobo, and two LAN ports.
Quite a lot going on for a 6"x6" mobo, and it could end up in a 20+" x 19+" case.
So for the price of WD purple drives, and a PCIE to SATA-ports card, it would be a significant improvement in storage.

 

[samplenhold]

What mobo did you go with?

ASUS Z890M-Plus Prime LGA 1851 microATX. The only reason I picked that one is it had 6 SATA ports. That was before I found out about HBA cards. If I had it to do over again, I would have picked a motherboard that had better PCIe lanes and less SATA ports, with most having four.

I am partial to ASUS. Have used them for years in all of my builds. Use to run Gigabyte until I had a bad experience. Switched to ASUS with no issues since. Rebuilt my office PC back in December with an ASUS TUF Gaming. Starting to rebuild my wife's gaming PC and ordered an ASUS ROG STRIX Z890-A Gaming WIFI board today.

Is a video card useful in a BI server?

It depends. As long as your CPU has graphics, then you do not need it for display. With the incorporation of sub-streams in BI, you no longer need it for HA. My current build does not have a graphics card. Those suckers have gotten expensive too. But if you are going to use AI in BI, then a proper AI compatible graphics card is important, I think. I have not yet run down the AI road. Others can chime in here.

Be careful of getting a SATA card. I went the way of getting an HBA card, based on recommendations by some folks here. I did look into the pros and cons of each and chose the HBA card over the SATA card, but I can't remember why. This is the one I got.

Amazon.com: SAS HBA Card Compatible with LSI 9300-8i IT Mode 8-Port with SATA Cables | SAS3008, PCIe 3.0 x8, 2x 8643 to SATA Cables, PCIe SATA Expansion Card, HBA Controller for ZFS TrueNAS unRAID NAS : Electronics

Buy SAS HBA Card Compatible with LSI 9300-8i IT Mode 8-Port with SATA Cables | SAS3008, PCIe 3.0 x8, 2x 8643 to SATA Cables, PCIe SATA Expansion Card, HBA Controller for ZFS TrueNAS unRAID NAS: RAID Controllers - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

The cabling is for SATA.

 

[Virga]

This is the kind of info I was hoping to get.
I have some functional understanding of PC components and have assembled my own PCs after getting fed up of limited standard builds, but others have more technical depth.
For example, when I say SATA ports, I am thinking places that I can connect SATA drives.
But I could not explain to somebody the finer points and differences between SATA ports, HBA card with SATA cables, and the 8-port card I had referenced above which looks like it uses 2 mini-SAS connections each with four SATA cables.
I have one PCIE 5 slot on the mobo and I'll get whatever card is most suitable to let me connect the most possible SATA drives ... like the card you linked to.
I have learned more about key concepts of computing in this forum than I have elsewhere.

When it comes to motherboards, the first thing I look for is two LAN ports because I have cams on a separate LAN card for network security, absent the network security depth to properly secure a network.
This instantly reduces the number of relevant available mobos to a small number.

I don't anticipate getting into AI for cams, and frankly, if I do, I'll just build a new PC.
There is so much more for me to learn about cams without getting into AI.
And at this point in life, just because something exists is not a compelling reason for me to go after it.

I searched for:
"SAS HBA Card Compatible with LSI 9300-8i IT Mode 8-Port with SATA Cables vs. StarTech 8-Port SATA III PCIe Card, 6Gbps, Non-RAID (8P6G-PCIE-SATA-CARD)"
got:
An LSI 9300-8i style SAS HBA card is vastly superior and more stable for software RAID, ZFS, and NAS builds (like TrueNAS or unRAID) compared to standard consumer chipset-based non-RAID SATA cards like the StarTech 8-port option.

Don't know if this is relevant for RAID applications only, or also for simply adding SATA drives.
Either way, its $90 vs $130 for the other card.

 

[Flintstone61]

jeez....HDD prices have gone up even more than the last time I freaked out about HDD prices a few months ago.
Storage used to be cheap and available....dammit all.

 

[samplenhold]

And at this point in life, just because something exists is not a compelling reason for me to go after it.

I totally agree.

This is an article that I read that made me pick HBA over SATA PCIe.

MSN

When it comes to motherboards, the first thing I look for is two LAN ports because I have cams on a separate LAN card for network security,

Understood. I also use two LAN connections, one for the camera sub-net and the other for a sub-net that has internet access. This isolates the cams from the internet. I just use a PCIe NIC card for the second one. But my boards have more than one PCIe slots.

 

[samplenhold]

jeez....HDD prices have gone up even more than the last time I freaked out about HDD prices a few months ago.

I was at Micro Center in Houston today buying a CPU for my wife's gaming PC rebuild. Walked by the HDD isle. All of them were locked up behind plexiglass. The 24TB WD Purple was $1059.99 and a 26TB was $1144.99!

That's $44.67 and $44.04 per TB.

Back in March they were $564.99 and $614.99 respectively.

 

[Virga]

Thanks for the info link.
For some few years I've been in to Small Form Factor PCs.
Its been fun, and there have been some beautifully crafted cases and nifty builds in them, all mini-ITX mobos, one PCIE slot.
Now I seem to be headed back to larger mobos which give you some room and flexibility, which is why I had gotten into builds in the first place..
With more PCI slots, I don't have to be limited to mobos that come with two LAN ports on the mobo.

Apparently AI data centers have bought out WD's entire production for the next couple of years, hence the price rise.
So if Data Centers un-happen, I wonder if hard drive prices will come crashing down.

Wasn't that long ago Samsung was teetering because memory chip prices were coming down, and they were barley making it through.
And then things changed.

 

[Flintstone61]

I wonder if Seagate is seeing any buy out of their production. Or if their prices reflect more availability. if not they are making out like bandits being able to creep up to WD price points.

 

[Virga]

WD was mentioned in the reporting, but chances are all the major producers must be in a similar situation.
Prudent buyers probably diversify their sourcing.

 

[samplenhold]

This is the first BI server that I built in 2018, micro ATX MB. I wanted white and small. Only holds three HDDs. But the MB had six SATA ports.



This years rebuild is also a micro ATX. I chose that one because it was the only one that had more than four SATA ports. But the case holds 12 HDDs, or so it claims. But two are not in positions that would make for good cooling and the other two-drive cage is so close to the power supply that connections would be very tight. Now I see that Corsair makes a 'shift' version which has the connections coming out the side. If the HDD prices ever come down, I might investigate if the 'shift' PS would give me enough room.

 

[Flintstone61]

wow. Big case for micro atx, thus the extra drive space. cool.