Subscriber Discussion

Economical 12 To 24-Bay Storage Enclosures For Surveillance?

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Feb 26, 2014

With all the new megapixel cameras coming up in the market,if you take any project with more than 50 cameras, the customer usually asks for up to 3 months of recording with an average 10fps at 2 megapixel resolution.When an integrator is quoting for such a project, 20-40% of the project cost can be for the storage and this is the most "grey" area in a "cctv project proposal". This is because most customers just care about clarity of the camera.They don't realise the importance of having enterprise level storage until they have failures in 1 or 2 years time.Hence integrators make use of this grey area and quote with decent storage enclosures and filling it with cheap hard drives.So to compete with these guys, can anyone suggest combinations of economical 12, 16 or 24 bay(or more) enclosures with the type of hard drives used,which can be used in recording at least 30+ cameras 24/7 and running decently without issues.

I would appreciate it if you could mention the resolution, fps and number of cameras used also, to get a better understanding.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Feb 26, 2014

But I think in Veracity Coldstore,the whole cost/reliability point in missed due to lack of redundancy.And raid 1 is the only redundancy option which again gets very expensive.Any other suggestions.

UI
Undisclosed Integrator #1
Feb 26, 2014

For example, we have installed netgear readynas 4200 with 12 wd greens(2tb) installed.35* 2 mp cameras recording at 15fps without any errors or failures for past 20 months.Software used is Aimetis Symphony and configured iscsi.This was a cheap storage solution which worked well also.

I am asking for similar combinations which worked well.

That being said I have had bitter experiences also, where we installed 12*3tb seagate sv35 hdds in netgear readynas 4200 v2,and had drives failing like crazy after six months.So please share the bad ones also.

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Carl Lindgren
Feb 26, 2014

Undisclosed, did you test the failed drives? I've found that if the RAID controller is not tuned specifically for video surveillance recording, it will kick out perfectly good drives.

ML
Mark Lewis
Feb 26, 2014

Agreed. Be careful tuning and pairing up RAID controllers and drives that are being stressed 24/7

JC
Jose Chevere
Feb 26, 2014

This is a very interesting conversation and I am surprised it has not come up sooner. As we continue to move from a CCTV world, where BTW DVR's failed also, IP video surveillance environment requires that the integrator, and VMS manufacturer are familiar with how a data center entrainment works. We have moved from a plug and play solution to a multi-Server environment (processing and storage), to understanding network bottlenecks, heating, cooling and power demands as well.

When discussing the correct disks for a solution, one needs to also consider the type of RAID being used as well; software vs. hardware. Sure, hardware RAID is more expensive than Software RAID which is fairly newer technology but you have to consider what you get for the extra $$. For Example, Software RAID is known to impact performance on the host computer, because it needs to process and determine where data goes before it is written to DISK. This can also cause data to be corrupted or especially if the incorrect (or older) driver is being used. Relying intensively on software RAID can cause video data files to be delayed from being written correctly, ultimately failing a drive at times.

Remember DISKS are nothing more than JBODS, Software or hardware w/specific software capabilities is what determine how well a DISK performs and/or is written to - especially for Video.

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