150 IP Camera Server Set Up - DL380 G9

[Zeevy]

Hello all. I’m extremely new to servers and server hardware. I’m working to build an IP camera security system using ZoneMinder on Ubuntu 18.04 desktop. Eventually I’ll have 125-150 cameras spread across 8-10 buildings with ubiquiti Ethernet bridges.

I’m looking to buy some hardware that can be expanded in the future as needed. I’ve found a HPE Proliant DL380 G9 24 | 1x 10C 2.6GHZ | 32GB | 2x 900GB.10K | P440 on eBay for $1,158. I can add another Intel E5-2660v3 10C 2.6GHz/25M Processor for $168 as well as significantly expand RAM, HHD, fans and it’s all hot swapable.

It seems like it should suit my purposes well. Is there a reason why this is a bad choice?

Just to clarify a few questions:
- Can I take my Western Digital external hard drives out of their cases and put them in hot swap trays/caddy’s?

- Is this kind of hardware appropriate for 100-150 cameras? It will only be running zoneminder and nothing else.

- Can I hook 2-3 screens up to this server to spread the view of all the cameras? i.e. have a multi-monitor computer. I want to be able to see everything at the same time. It looks like this has only one VGA port out for monitor connection. I believe I can add some graphics cards that have HDMI correct? Can something different be added or am I not understanding correctly?

 

[BlueFox]

What resolution and framerate on the cameras? Do you need motion detection or the likes? If the former is high, you will likely need an incredibly beefy setup, if ZoneMinder can even handle that many concurrent cameras. If you also need the later, I'm not sure if that's feasible.

 

[Zeevy]

What resolution and framerate on the cameras? Do you need motion detection or the likes? If the former is high, you will likely need an incredibly beefy setup, if ZoneMinder can even handle that many concurrent cameras. If you also need the later, I'm not sure if that's feasible.

Thank you for your reply!

I’m planning to use ANPVIZ 3mp cameras at 2-3fps, with H.264, with 24/7 recording and selected motion detection. From my understanding, this set up is on the lower side of intensity, but it can add up with lots of cameras.

Just a few more questions:
- Can I take my Western Digital external hard drives out of their cases and put them in hot swap trays/caddy’s? Do you know the caddy part number?

- Can I hook 2-3 screens up to this server to spread the view of all the cameras? i.e. have a multi-monitor computer. I want to be able to see everything at the same time. It looks like this has only one VGA port out for monitor connection. I believe I can add some graphics cards that have HDMI correct? Can something different be added or am I not understanding correctly?

 

[BlueFox]

The server you linked (which is incredibly overpriced, so should really get something else) takes 2.5" drives, which often have the USB connector attached to the drive's PCB, so you may or may not be able to. Trays are readily available however: For HP 651687-001 2.5" SAS SATA HDD Tray Caddy G8 Gen8 G9 Gen9 DL380p DL360p US | eBay

Rackmount servers are not intended to be used as desktop equivalents, but you could add a low power GPU to accomplish that. Why do you want to have monitors attached to the server anyway, when you could have a desktop pulling data from your NVR to fill that role?

 

[Zeevy]

The server you linked (which is incredibly overpriced, so should really get something else) takes 2.5" drives, which often have the USB connector attached to the drive's PCB, so you may or may not be able to. Trays are readily available however: For HP 651687-001 2.5" SAS SATA HDD Tray Caddy G8 Gen8 G9 Gen9 DL380p DL360p US | eBay

Rackmount servers are not intended to be used as desktop equivalents, but you could add a low power GPU to accomplish that. Why do you want to have monitors attached to the server anyway, when you could have a desktop pulling data from your NVR to fill that role?

Do you have a different server recommendation? I'm totally new and will take any advice! Thank you!

According to the ZoneMinder docs, more cores and more RAM help for motion detection and keeping things running smoothly with more cameras. This server can accept huge amounts RAM, hard drives, and even a second processor seems like it would fit the ticket. You said it's very expensive so I'm 100% willing to look at something else that could do similar things for less money.

This shows my lack of experience - all server must connect to a monitor eventually right? This is why I assumed I could connect some monitors up to see everything. Is this incorrect?

So I have about 10 apartment buildings spread across four blocks (~2500 feet end to end) that will be connected by Ubiquiti ethernet bridges. I have three old NVR systems and the rest of the cameras will be PoE IP cams with switches etc. Everything will come back to the main office and I'd like to set up a "command center" on one computer where I can see and access everything easily at one time and have all the recordings stored locally. A server with tons of room for expansion seems like the least bad option. If there is a better option, please I am all ears! : )

 

[BlueFox]

Hardware of that generation can generally be had for $200-400. How much hard drive space do you need (and total number of drive bays)? Do you also want a rackmount system or would you prefer a desktop if the specs were identical?

 

[Zeevy]

Hardware of that generation can generally be had for $200-400. How much hard drive space do you need (and total number of drive bays)?

I did some more looking on eBay and your estimate seems to be right. Thank you!

I have about 32tb of 3.5" western digital drives that are empty now and I don't want to buy new ones. I'd say 4-12 drive bays? In general the more hard drive space, the better.

Do you also want a rackmount system or would you prefer a desktop if the specs were identical?

I don't see why I should have a preference between rackmount vs desktop if the specs and expandability are the same. Do you have some suggestions?

 

[BlueFox]

Could just pick up a refurbished workstation then. Something along the lines of a Dell 5810, Lenovo P700, or HP Z840.

 

[Angus]

Not sure if ZoneMinder has improved but I know way back it used to be a CPU/memory hog.

With the size of your setup are you looking are you looking at any integrations? Access control etc? If so might be better to go with one of the commercial offerings. Hanwha Wave/Digital Watchdog are all rebranded Network Optix works very well and is light on resources and they offer good support, that being said you do need to pay for licenses, Exacqvision would also be another option. If you are running it commercially those offerings will offer security patches etc from a cyber security viewpoint. Also look out for the cheap Dahua hikvision cameras as lots have been backdoored at the source..

Typically you will want to separate the viewing workstation from the server, not sure if zoneminder supports any GPU acceleration on the viewing side.

 

[Zeevy]

Could just pick up a refurbished workstation then. Something along the lines of a Dell 5810, Lenovo P700, or HP Z840.

Thank you for the suggestions. I took a look at some of those and when selecting set ups with similar specs, the prices seemed quite close, but had less ability to add RAM and HDDs. Is there a benefit to a workstation? Quieter fans?

Not sure if ZoneMinder has improved but I know way back it used to be a CPU/memory hog.

They seem to be updating the software ocassionally. 1.36.0 was just released a about month ago. It looks like they have improved the memory issues.

With the size of your setup are you looking are you looking at any integrations? Access control etc? If so might be better to go with one of the commercial offerings. Hanwha Wave/Digital Watchdog are all rebranded Network Optix works very well and is light on resources and they offer good support, that being said you do need to pay for licenses, Exacqvision would also be another option. If you are running it commercially those offerings will offer security patches etc from a cyber security viewpoint. Also look out for the cheap Dahua hikvision cameras as lots have been backdoored at the source..

The prices were just too high for me to justify using a commercial system. Also, I know overtime they'll change their fee structures and raise prices and/or reduce services. I can't take the risk after spending thousands to buy and install that many cameras. I want to set up a system and leave it there except when I need to check out some footage.

Typically you will want to separate the viewing workstation from the server, not sure if zoneminder supports any GPU acceleration on the viewing side.

What do you mean by this?

 

[Angus]

Angus said:
Typically you will want to separate the viewing workstation from the server, not sure if zoneminder supports any GPU acceleration on the viewing side.

What do you mean by this?

Usually you do not view the cameras on the server.. you connect to the server from a workstation that is running the viewing client software, that will then pull the recorded footage or the live stream from the server or depending on the configuration the live stream may also come from the camera directly, but it just uses the workstation resources rather than the server resources. Most commercial packages now support GPU acceleration for viewing, but if you are just viewing a few at once its not a big issue, but if you are trying to pull 20 5MP streams your CPU will choke.

What camera's are you looking to install? Indoor/outdoor?

Are you going straight PoE or doing some kind of TVI/AHD and then using a decoder to bring it back to the network?

 

[Zeevy]

Usually you do not view the cameras on the server.. you connect to the server from a workstation that is running the viewing client software, that will then pull the recorded footage or the live stream from the server or depending on the configuration the live stream may also come from the camera directly, but it just uses the workstation resources rather than the server resources. Most commercial packages now support GPU acceleration for viewing, but if you are just viewing a few at once its not a big issue, but if you are trying to pull 20 5MP streams your CPU will choke.

Well this doesn't make me feel good. So it's extremely unlikely I'll be able to reliably view live streams from all 150 cams simultaneously on a few monitors connected to the server? From what I read on the ZoneMinder forums, 1 core will run 4 cameras. 150 cams / 4 = 37.5 cores for all of them. So two of the E5-2699 v3 processors (18 cores each - $320 each) should theoretically do the job? Or am I not understanding correctly?

What camera's are you looking to install? Indoor/outdoor?

Right now, I'm planning to use ANPVIZ 3MP PoE IP Dome Camera running at 3fps, with H.264, and possibly in black and white. It's my understanding this should create a small load per camera.

The cameras will be on apartment buildings on the exteriors (around buildings and pointing up and down the streets), hallways, and the workshops. Only select cameras will do motion detection. The cameras pointing at the streets will not for example.

Are you going straight PoE or doing some kind of TVI/AHD and then using a decoder to bring it back to the network?

I have about 25 cameras hooked up to these old Amcrest 2MP Security Camera DVR bundles that I can connect to a AXIS M7016 video encoder that will connect to PoE switch that goes to the server.

All the new cameras will be the ANPVIZ 3MP PoE IP cams with Cat6 Ethernet back to the server.

 

[Angus]

Well this doesn't make me feel good. So it's extremely unlikely I'll be able to reliably view live streams from all 150 cams simultaneously on a few monitors connected to the server? From what I read on the ZoneMinder forums, 1 core will run 4 cameras. 150 cams / 4 = 37.5 cores for all of them. So two of the E5-2699 v3 processors (18 cores each - $320 each) should theoretically do the job? Or am I not understanding correctly?

Trying to monitor 150 camera's is pointless unless you have a proper monitoring center setup.. which I don't think you do.. figure 4 camera's per monitor ~38 monitors.. thats quiet the video wall you would need. You could do dark screen monitoring based on event/motion but no clue if zone minder can do that but I would bet not.

Right now, I'm planning to use ANPVIZ 3MP PoE IP Dome Camera running at 3fps, with H.264, and possibly in black and white. It's my understanding this should create a small load per camera.

The cameras will be on apartment buildings on the exteriors (around buildings and pointing up and down the streets), hallways, and the workshops. Only select cameras will do motion detection. The cameras pointing at the streets will not for example.

Not familiar with those those as all the ones I touch are brand names one.. but 3mp will still generate a fair bit of traffic.. no clue why you would want do do B&W unless at night using IR

I have about 25 cameras hooked up to these old Amcrest 2MP Security Camera DVR bundles that I can connect to a AXIS M7016 video encoder that will connect to PoE switch that goes to the server.

All the new cameras will be the ANPVIZ 3MP PoE IP cams with Cat6 Ethernet back to the server.

That encoder will not help you, it looks like the Amcrest cameras are getting power over the coax, that encoder will not send power, so you would have to power them externally, also they say they are 1080 so they are not "Analog" cameras they are using TVI or some encoding method. That encoder will not deal with that and it will not work.

That being said if you have true analog camera's its a decent enough encoder if you don't want to pay for the Q series ones. I've used them and they tend to have a long life.

 

[Zeevy]

Trying to monitor 150 camera's is pointless unless you have a proper monitoring center setup.. which I don't think you do.. figure 4 camera's per monitor ~38 monitors.. thats quiet the video wall you would need. You could do dark screen monitoring based on event/motion but no clue if zone minder can do that but I would bet not.

I have a 4, 8, and 16 camera systems with the old Amcrest DVR units. Looking at the 16 camera view (I can also change to the 24 cam view) on a small monitor is ok for me. When I want to research something I pull up the larger view if needed. I'm planning to use large monitors. Maybe 40-50" monitors/TV. I need to do some more research on exactly what here. Long story short, I do plan to build a command center type space. Probably with 4-6 large monitors. I'm going to build this out over probably 2-3 years as I add more cameras to each building.

Do you think two of the E5-2699 v3, 18 core (36 thread) processors will be up to the task of displaying all the cams simultaneously to 4-6 large monitors?

Edit: 50" 4K TV for $203 seems like a real deal. Four of these would likely be able to nicely show 100 cameras.

Not familiar with those those as all the ones I touch are brand names one.. but 3mp will still generate a fair bit of traffic.. no clue why you would want do do B&W unless at night using IR

I bought one to test and it worked well enough for my needs. Since I'm building this over 2-3 years, if there are issues with something, I'll have time to test and see how everything works and change things up as needed. These are basically the cheapest 3mp PoE IP cams that I could finds info saying they work with ZoneMidner.

B&W is supposed to be less intensive for the computer, but I'm really not sure if it's the best idea. ID-ing car colors, clothing colors, etc I think would be quite useful.

That encoder will not help you, it looks like the Amcrest cameras are getting power over the coax, that encoder will not send power, so you would have to power them externally, also they say they are 1080 so they are not "Analog" cameras they are using TVI or some encoding method. That encoder will not deal with that and it will not work.

That being said if you have true analog camera's its a decent enough encoder if you don't want to pay for the Q series ones. I've used them and they tend to have a long life.

Hmm. Thank you for this advice. This could save me a lot of money. My Amcrest DVRs do have an ethernet port on the back, so I wonder if I can connect that up to a switch and send all the feeds back to ZoneMinder?



Thank you and all contributors for your advice!

 

[986box]

Thank you for the suggestions. I took a look at some of those and when selecting set ups with similar specs, the prices seemed quite close, but had less ability to add RAM and HDDs. Is there a benefit to a workstation? Quieter fans?




They seem to be updating the software ocassionally. 1.36.0 was just released a about month ago. It looks like they have improved the memory issues.


The prices were just too high for me to justify using a commercial system. Also, I know overtime they'll change their fee structures and raise prices and/or reduce services. I can't take the risk after spending thousands to buy and install that many cameras. I want to set up a system and leave it there except when I need to check out some footage.


What do you mean by this?

You install zmNinja desktop to view the streams. It’s free. The mobile version is not.

 

[Zeevy]

You install zmNinja desktop to view the streams. It’s free. The mobile version is not.

I don't have any problem paying $4.99 for the zmNinja mobile app as long as it works well. I'll look into the desktop version as well. Thanks!

 

[Angus]

I have a 4, 8, and 16 camera systems with the old Amcrest DVR units. Looking at the 16 camera view (I can also change to the 24 cam view) on a small monitor is ok for me. When I want to research something I pull up the larger view if needed. I'm planning to use large monitors. Maybe 40-50" monitors/TV. I need to do some more research on exactly what here. Long story short, I do plan to build a command center type space. Probably with 4-6 large monitors. I'm going to build this out over probably 2-3 years as I add more cameras to each building.

Do you think two of the E5-2699 v3, 18 core (36 thread) processors will be up to the task of displaying all the cams simultaneously to 4-6 large monitors?

Edit: 50" 4K TV for $203 seems like a real deal. Four of these would likely be able to nicely show 100 cameras.

You will want to make sure the camera's support multiple streams, and not sure if ZoneMinder handles that... that way you can pull a low res 640x480 or whatever for live view if you have that many camera's up and then still record the full res. Most CCTV packages would run switch to full res if you full size that camera. I don't know if that PC will handle it as its very client dependent and I have never used zoneminder.

I bought one to test and it worked well enough for my needs. Since I'm building this over 2-3 years, if there are issues with something, I'll have time to test and see how everything works and change things up as needed. These are basically the cheapest 3mp PoE IP cams that I could finds info saying they work with ZoneMidner.

B&W is supposed to be less intensive for the computer, but I'm really not sure if it's the best idea. ID-ing car colors, clothing colors, etc I think would be quite useful.

I have not run a camera in BW other than at night, but I don't think you will save anything, the issue is the bandwidth will remain pretty much the same so I don't see a point in it. At night your bandwidth requirements will probably go up either way due to more noise in the image.

Hmm. Thank you for this advice. This could save me a lot of money. My Amcrest DVRs do have an ethernet port on the back, so I wonder if I can connect that up to a switch and send all the feeds back to ZoneMinder?

If they can put out a stream as ONVIF then you should be able to pick it up.. but not sure if they do... most of that cheap stuff has no real documentation etc.

 

[Zeevy]

If they can put out a stream as ONVIF then you should be able to pick it up.. but not sure if they do... most of that cheap stuff has no real documentation etc.

The old Amcrest cams don't say anything about ONVIF, but they can do RTSP according to the manual. ZoneMinder can use RTSP according go the docs. Hopefully I'll be able to get something to work nicely through the old DVR boxes.



What is the best way to hook up 4-6 monitors to a HPE DL380 G9?

Add a graphics card? What cards can handle something like this and are they reliable?

 

[Gnodu]

Before you pull the trigger on any hardware or software, you probably should look into some of the other options, like BlueIris- I would especially recommend the forums there. (Blue Iris - Index page) I run 20 cameras on BI, as between 4MP and 8MP, mostly on continuous record, at 15-30fps, depending on what they're watching. Couple run audio feeds as well, tho the audio function is not so important to me,

Something nobody has brought up here, but that is an important consideration:
1) Many of the programs that record video from these make extensive use of QuickSync-- which is *generally* not built into older Xeons-- I think they might have put it in a couple of the E3- series, and workstation series. I cannot speak to Amcrest or ZoneMinder, but it would do well for you to find out first. **QuickSync, in particular becomes more and more important with h.264 & 265, and the more cameras you have, the more important.
1a) I tried a couple Xeon e5- v3 versions, and ultimately switched to a gaming board with an i7 (that had built in graphics...) Without the QuickSync, I was not going to get anywhere.
1b) I tried a couple exotic ideas- none worked./ Stuff like a version 1 Intel Visual Compute Accelerator that has 3 Xeon e3 chips and is specifically designed for transcoding...) I learned a lot in the process, but it was a waste of time.

2) Assuming you need a video card for help transcoding- you want to use the Nviidia NVENC matrix (Video Encode and Decode GPU Support Matrix [NEW]) - highly recommend going to the Quadro tab. I went with a Quadro M4000 (reminder- the letter inditcates the chip generation- you don't want one without a letter, they're really old, but in some cases, look similar.
2a) WHY Quadro is the way to go? Take a look at the NVENC link under Quadro, and not all the "unlimited" notes in the middle of the page... THAT, along with <check h.264/265 columns for your max inbound resolution/depth)- and you'll be in business.
*I paid about $250 for my M4000 about a year ago-- you can get them for $200 now. (Look for a new-old-stuck dell version if you can-- mine came with 4 nice DisplayPort cables.
2b) I have seen a github that purports to hexedit your drivers to make almost any GTX/RTX card unlimited... I'm not naive to this, but I am not going to recommend it, either--

3) Hardware lessons learned: So if you are wondering what I am using- I don't have time to pull the fill specs for you, but:
**i7-8086 CPU- left from when I upgraded the gaming PC to x299
**Quadro M4000- balance between cost & capabilities. (I have an extra RTX3090 in the closet, am tempted to cut the seals and give it a try! Honestly, I doubt it would make much difference- ibut it would drink a lot of power!)
**32GB of RAM- BI typically maxxes out at 12-14GB, but make SURE that you cover all the channels on the board. (if your CPU has 4 channels, then use 4 DIMMs.
**This is not an ideal choice, but it's how I chose to do mine: BI writes to an Oracle F40 accelerator (think 4 SATA SSDs, set up as stripes) and then is set to transfer over to the spinning drives when it is convenient. So far, the F40 drives are still doing well on endurance- but you might one to consider doing something similar with a heavy-write SSD. **NOTE: PLEASE don't slam me for doing this- I know it's not the ideal approach-- but I did it as an experiment, and in my setup, it paid off. Frankly, the F40 was one step from the ""Eh, unlikely to get used" pile. so it was a pretty low risk experiment.**
Hard drives- because I use the SSD (F40) in the middle, using surveillance drives that are set to run 24/7 is not an absolute requirement- you mentioned having 32TB of various drives sitting around, so doing this might save you some hassle. **That said- if you are not going to be able to put an SSD in the middle-- make sure you use Surveillance/"Media" (Made for use in DVR/NVR, in terms of their firmware) drives.

I hope that some of this info is useful to you- but even if you do not want to consider BI-- I'd encourage a look at either the forums above, or IPCAMTALK boards,, there's a TON of good information for a lot of people that have more experience than I do!!

Take care,
-Matt

 

[Zeevy]

Hmm. You've really given me a lot to think about and research. Thank you for making me aware of this issue. I would have been very annoyed if it didn't work well after all this work.

thank you for your thorough reply as well!