CCTV storage questions

[Nathan_P]

Not sure if this is the right place for this so if not please move to a more appropriate place.

I have been tasked with trying to repair our CCTV systems at work, all based on standard PC components in a rack case but i've hit a snag with the storage options.

Now the systems are from 2005 and have the following specs.

Server 1 & 2. Pentium 4 2.8Ghz on a MSI 845GE mobo, 512mb RAM, ITE PATA raid card with 4 250Gb HDD, one is loaded with maxtors, the other hitachi deskstar's, set up as standard drives as far as i can tell - i have 5 drive letters so thats what i'm guessing has been done and 4 video capture cards each with 4 coax connectors

Server 3. Pentium 4 2.8Ghz on a MSI 865 mobo, 512mb RAM, 2 250mb Hitachi drives in a RAID 0 array run from the mobo and 4 video capture cards each with 4 coax connectors

Most of the HDD are shot and need replacing and this is where i have hit a snag, should I just replace like for like and utilise the existing RAID cards or should I set up all 3 with a PCI SATA raid card using newer SATA drives? Ideally i'm looking for 2-3Tb of storage in each and it needs to be as cheap as possible

 

[valve1138]

How about a NAS instead?

 

[Nathan_P]

How about a NAS instead?

too much money, its only a stop gap for a couple of years until i can get the funding for a whole new system, i've already been out for quotes and the NAS I was quoted came in at £5,750 for 18Tb

 

[mwroobel]

Not sure if this is the right place for this so if not please move to a more appropriate place.

I have been tasked with trying to repair our CCTV systems at work, all based on standard PC components in a rack case but i've hit a snag with the storage options.

Now the systems are from 2005 and have the following specs.

Server 1 & 2. Pentium 4 2.8Ghz on a MSI 845GE mobo, 512mb RAM, ITE PATA raid card with 4 250Gb HDD, one is loaded with maxtors, the other hitachi deskstar's, set up as standard drives as far as i can tell - i have 5 drive letters so thats what i'm guessing has been done and 4 video capture cards each with 4 coax connectors

Server 3. Pentium 4 2.8Ghz on a MSI 865 mobo, 512mb RAM, 2 250mb Hitachi drives in a RAID 0 array run from the mobo and 4 video capture cards each with 4 coax connectors

Most of the HDD are shot and need replacing and this is where i have hit a snag, should I just replace like for like and utilise the existing RAID cards or should I set up all 3 with a PCI SATA raid card using newer SATA drives? Ideally i'm looking for 2-3Tb of storage in each and it needs to be as cheap as possible

Unless you have a particular need for specific requirements that this particular hardware supported you should completely scrap what you have. It is outdated and severely limited at this point. If it is 7 years old, it is likely MPEG2 or worse. You can get an off-the-shelf 16 port coax/12v DVR with a 1tb drive (which with the newer MPEG4/motion trigger recording will hold what 4TB on an older system would) for ~$1K (non-name) or ~$1,500 (Name brand (Samsung, Nuvico, etc). We recently replaced about 400 ports of older Nuvico DVR4 MPEG2 DVR's with some Samsung boxes. We got the 1TB 16 port models and every week we back off 7 days worth to a NAS box. Their particular MPEG4 implementation offloads for the same number of days/same resolution use about 20-25% of the space that the older recordings using MPEG2 required. What recording size are you currently using? 320x200/30, 640x300/15, D1, etc?
In addition, the power used and heat generated by those old P4 servers will be greatly reduced by either going with a canned solution like the Samsung or even if you replace it with an i3 box with some 16 port MPEG4 cards.
Do you have specific legal requirements about the data retention or are you just doing it for your own needs? If you update to MPEG4 based systems your storage requirements will be much lower. $$$ Will dictate how fault tolerant and how backed-up you become.

 

[Nathan_P]

Unless you have a particular need for specific requirements that this particular hardware supported you should completely scrap what you have. It is outdated and severely limited at this point. If it is 7 years old, it is likely MPEG2 or worse. You can get an off-the-shelf 16 port coax/12v DVR with a 1tb drive (which with the newer MPEG4/motion trigger recording will hold what 4TB on an older system would) for ~$1K (non-name) or ~$1,500 (Name brand (Samsung, Nuvico, etc). We recently replaced about 400 ports of older Nuvico DVR4 MPEG2 DVR's with some Samsung boxes. We got the 1TB 16 port models and every week we back off 7 days worth to a NAS box. Their particular MPEG4 implementation offloads for the same number of days/same resolution use about 20-25% of the space that the older recordings using MPEG2 required. What recording size are you currently using? 320x200/30, 640x300/15, D1, etc?
In addition, the power used and heat generated by those old P4 servers will be greatly reduced by either going with a canned solution like the Samsung or even if you replace it with an i3 box with some 16 port MPEG4 cards.
Do you have specific legal requirements about the data retention or are you just doing it for your own needs? If you update to MPEG4 based systems your storage requirements will be much lower. $$$ Will dictate how fault tolerant and how backed-up you become.

I already have 3 of those off shelf DVR's in one store and 2 in others and to coin a phrase they are crap, they are less than 18months old and are already breaking down hence the need to replace. This repair is a only a shortish term solution as ultimately i want proper new kit that wll hold plenty of footage and be easy to use (key requirement) but it may mean that i can have better kit as not all the upgrades will be done at the same time if i can get these going. As for resolution its a mish mash of 720x288, and 720x576, at 10-15fps.

As for data retention, a NAS is definately out of the question due to cost but footage we need to keep for 6 weeks in case of customer complaint or query, one of our DVR's manages only 11 days at the moment.

 

[Aesma]

Finding PATA drives now would be a challenge, and expecting any kind of reliability from them, forget about it.

 

[mwroobel]

I already have 3 of those off shelf DVR's in one store and 2 in others and to coin a phrase they are crap, they are less than 18months old and are already breaking down hence the need to replace. This repair is a only a shortish term solution as ultimately i want proper new kit that wll hold plenty of footage and be easy to use (key requirement) but it may mean that i can have better kit as not all the upgrades will be done at the same time if i can get these going. As for resolution its a mish mash of 720x288, and 720x576, at 10-15fps.

As for data retention, a NAS is definately out of the question due to cost but footage we need to keep for 6 weeks in case of customer complaint or query, one of our DVR's manages only 11 days at the moment.

If you want to stick with the boxes you already have and just replace the drives, you can have a go at that. I am guessing by the resolution you are recording PAL? What OS are you running on the boxes with the cap cards? WinXP? You could always get some SATA drives and strap on a PATA-SATA bridge adapter, or add a PCI SATA card to the old equipment. As Aesma said, you are unlikely to find any current PATA drives. With the current cards, how is it saving the video? MJPEG? MPEG2? Do you have network access to the drive it is saving it to? With the system we are using it batches 24 hours into a single file every day for the past day, and then we sftp the file off the dvr to backend storage so we can go back if we need to.

 

[GeorgeHR]

Not sure if this is the right place for this so if not please move to a more appropriate place.

I have been tasked with trying to repair our CCTV systems at work, all based on standard PC components in a rack case but i've hit a snag with the storage options.

Now the systems are from 2005 and have the following specs.

Server 1 & 2. Pentium 4 2.8Ghz on a MSI 845GE mobo, 512mb RAM, ITE PATA raid card with 4 250Gb HDD, one is loaded with maxtors, the other hitachi deskstar's, set up as standard drives as far as i can tell - i have 5 drive letters so thats what i'm guessing has been done and 4 video capture cards each with 4 coax connectors

Server 3. Pentium 4 2.8Ghz on a MSI 865 mobo, 512mb RAM, 2 250mb Hitachi drives in a RAID 0 array run from the mobo and 4 video capture cards each with 4 coax connectors

Most of the HDD are shot and need replacing and this is where i have hit a snag, should I just replace like for like and utilise the existing RAID cards or should I set up all 3 with a PCI SATA raid card using newer SATA drives? Ideally i'm looking for 2-3Tb of storage in each and it needs to be as cheap as possible

Get $20 PCI cards:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815124020

And get cheap hard drives. 2TB WD for $100 or so.

 

[Nathan_P]

If you want to stick with the boxes you already have and just replace the drives, you can have a go at that. I am guessing by the resolution you are recording PAL? What OS are you running on the boxes with the cap cards? WinXP? You could always get some SATA drives and strap on a PATA-SATA bridge adapter, or add a PCI SATA card to the old equipment. As Aesma said, you are unlikely to find any current PATA drives. With the current cards, how is it saving the video? MJPEG? MPEG2? Do you have network access to the drive it is saving it to? With the system we are using it batches 24 hours into a single file every day for the past day, and then we sftp the file off the dvr to backend storage so we can go back if we need to.

According to the skimpy manual its a custom codec, not sure if its true or not but i can't tell by looking at the files.

Yes recording PAL as in the UK and on winxp, have got a line on some WD blue 500GB PATA (new) but they are more expensive than a PCI SATA raid and SATA drives. No network access as the moment as our network is in a worse state than the cctv kit. Leaning towards the PCI sata card option as even with the added cost of the card its still cheaper than the PATA drives