Help me build home Server / NAS / Security / PLEX / VMs / etc - The Lot

[MoboMikey]

On 2/7/2020 at 5:29 AM, bobbybdennis said:

Any update on this? Curious if you ended up going forward with this project

 

Hey, yes, we're still going ahead, my PIL bought the property last week, and have engaged a builder, so the project is back on and I'm putting together build list currently.

I'll update this thread as we go, might take some time, COVID-19 and all that, but next post will be an image of draft equipment and rough layout.

[GoldDragon007]

Hi @MoboMikey,

You want to build out an almost identical system as I've half done.

For your NAS choice, DiskStation DS1817 may be better, it has already two 10Gbe RJ45 on it and two 1Gbe. Where I'm living it's cheaper. Also, it's cheaper if I buy myself the extra RAM instead as of a package.

For your POE switch, make sure you don't go over of the power budget of the switch and per port base. If you buying Unify equipment they will compatible with each other most probably, but if you want to connect to another manufacturer's device, it needs to be able to negotiate to the proper power option (802.3at/802.3af/etc) otherwise it won't work.

For the Unify generally, make sure that you don't want to use too advanced functions, that's not on the UI. If you want then go with the Edge series, they have more stuff on the UI and it's harder to put it to a boot loop (at least this is what I've herd). If you go with that you will lose of course the once you set up and every device will be set up magic.

For the cameras, check youtube videos, to see what they make. I've seen that it's not a good choice, except if you really want to go with the Unify ecosystem. I saw a few YouTubers (and forum posters) who changed at the end of the unify cameras to another brand one because they weren't satisfied with the image quality. Also, if your cameras are outside (or maybe inside too) and reachable place, I would also consider having some vandalism protection (IKXX) on them. For the outside ones may need proper IPXX protection too.

I saw that you want home automation too, I'm suggesting to dig NOW before you buy any equipment to find out what you want. I.e. if you want reliable motion detection and trigger some automation then forget the build-in motion detection. Go with custom NVR and neutral network.

 

My current setup:

Router: ER-12 (powered by passive POE)

Switches: ES-48 750W (for POE), Mikrotik CRS312-4C+8XG-RM (for 10 Gbe) both managed

AP: UAP-HD

Raspberry PI 4 for Home Assistant (home automation platform), Pi-hole, unify cloud software and some other stuff

The above one eats ~107W that's around two combi fridge per month. (wow, I may need to get some solar panels too...)

 

NAS/PLEX/NVR: Here I'm not decided yet what will be the final solution.

For the NAS I've thought a DiskStation DS1817 but for around that money, I would be able to build a better one.

For PLEX who know where I will run, NAS or NVR. Whenever it will possible.

NVR: I going a custom solution with Windows 10 + Blue Iris (this software is once you buy it, you get for 1-year updates, then you can choose, you pay a small amount to get updates, or you don't and keep using the last version that you have already, of course i.e. 1 year later if they made an improvement that you need, you subscribe for 1 year and that's it), mostly because I can build this into my home automation.

Now here I have several problems, that you may need also to consider. 1st consumption, 2nd performance over time, I've seen some peoples that they complained about their Synology NAS, because after 2 years it gets slow, freaking slow. There was no too much mention why and what's the environment... soo... yeah. I'm assuming they utilised all the bays, and their storage started to being full totally. Besides that most of the NAS probably doesn't have hardware support for RAID 5/6 and they also don't have a huge amount of CPU muscle, it can be also a problem.

Also if you build a custom PC, it might be an interesting idea to build a custom NAS, that can do both. I.e. Silverstone CS381 has 8 hot swaps and 4 internal ones. In this case, you can save money and power probably. Depending on your build and need.

 

Cameras: 6 domes and 2 PTZ probably all will be Hikvision with POE. Most probably all 4K, and continuous recording on lover res, and if there is a motion detection by the neutral network then it will switch to high res. Smart huh? But this switch part is done by Blue Iris, not the camera itself.

 

My other personal problem if I want to use 4K hardware transcoding for PLEX or my NVR. I can do it only with Intel Quick Sync or nVidea (for plex AMD video card too). So I have a contradiction between long term cost and low build cost and possibilities.

 

And as I said, if you really want to go for home automation then you need to check now what you want to do and how can be done. You may need to change and adapt your setup for that.

[MoboMikey]

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

You want to build out an almost identical system as I've half done

Hey mate, thanks for a great post and ideas, i'll response below

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

For your NAS choice, DiskStation DS1817 may be better

Good point, the NAS only needs to serve files to the server, so getting something cheaper, but with better ports would be great

I'll look into this and report back

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

For your POE switch, make sure you don't go over of the power budget of the switch and per port base

 

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

For the cameras, check youtube videos, to see what they make.

Yea, I've been thinking about this, but as of now my PIL have not yet decided on the cameras, I think they've moved away from the Ubiquiti ones, but i'll need to make sure whatever they choose will work. I did look further into these and wasn't super happy. They are still shown on the diagram below, only because the new option hasn't been decided yet.

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

For the Unify generally, make sure that you don't want to use too advanced functions

Yep, we're not going to be doing anything fancy, just using the router for firewall, and switch for traffic with VLANs, so it should all be OK, and the interface is nice which is a plus

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

I saw that you want home automation too...

Yea, ideally we would know ahead of time what my PIL want, but they don't know yet and probably won't until after they are in the house and have settled for a bit, which is partly why i'm 'over speccing' the server, but if we need to spend more money later, they will be OK with that.

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

For the NAS I've thought a DiskStation DS1817 but for around that money, I would be able to build a better one.

Yea, so in terms of building my own NAS, i could do this on the server and i've actually thought about this, but as my PIL live 60 minutes away, I don't want to be called up to come over and do any technical troubleshooting on any potential issues - i've used Synology for years and am very familiar, but something like FreeNAS i'm not at all....any my PIL are not able to do the troubleshooting themselves either....

Its a more expensive option to use Synology, but I know it works

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

NVR: I going a custom solution with Windows 10 + Blue Iris

Great call out, i'll need to make sure that something like this is compatible with whatever they end up choosing, something to keep in mind - and the licensing model is fantastic!

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

Cameras: 6 domes and 2 PTZ probably all will be Hikvision with POE

Yea, actually my PIL have been looking at Hikvision, do you have model numbers of what you're using? If they work with the Unifi PoE then I'm happy to recommend them.

On 8/3/2020 at 12:55 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

So I have a contradiction between long term cost and low build cost and possibilities

Ah, well i'm very lucky in that my PIL have provided a budget of $12,000 AUD (up to $15,000 if required) so I'm able to worry less about the cost.

 

If it were my own project, my budget would be $1,000 haha.

 

Here is current thoughts, but will be updated based on your post, and other things i'm considering:

 

Server specs:

CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 3700X
Motherboard: ASRock X570 Steel Legend ATX AM4
Memory: G.Skill Trident Z 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3200 CL14
Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 512 GB M.2-2280 NVME
Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME
Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB GAMING OC 3X
Power Supply: SeaSonic PRIME Platinum 850 W 80+ Platinum Certified Fully Modular
SilverStone RMS06-22 Rail Kit for SilverStone RM400 4U Chassis 
SilverStone RM41-506 Black 4U Rackmount Case, No PSU 

[GoldDragon007]

2 hours ago, MoboMikey said:

Great call out, i'll need to make sure that something like this is compatible with whatever they end up choosing

I think these manufacturer specific NVRs can be only used by their own products, so double check it, as english speaker you will be able to find really easily youtube video (or forum) for this.

2 hours ago, MoboMikey said:

do you have model numbers of what you're using?

That's why my system is just halfly build.  I don't have yet, because I'm still waiting for the common meeting. I want one of my cameras to above my appartmant entrace door, therefore because of that's a common area, I need allowance. For this reason I've did not checked yet too deaply.

Genericly saying you need to see what POE is supported by your switch and the camera. If it's the same standard, like: 802.3at or 802.3af, then it will work if your camera doesn't have more power requirement than your switch can provide per port and total (alias power budget). The video signal and connection to the camera is the NVR's problem (in case of Blue Iris they have a lot of preconfigured settings for cameras, but there is also a Generic camera, therefore you can set up your own 'unkown' one).

Hikvision has a lot of different type of cameras, so your PIL needs to decide what they want to do with it, and then chose accordingly. I.e. they have really low light cameras, low light cameras, cameras, etc. The ones that I've looked randomly in the past they've cost around 200-300€ the standard dome ones. The PTZ ones around 600€. Depending on your resolution and needs of your PIL, you may need to consider about H.265 and H.265+ support too. That can reduce a lot of the video storage needs compared to the older versions.

For my case I would look a camera with this specs:

4k H.265+ main stream

FHD at least H.264 but ideally H.265 or H.265+ secondary stream

3rd/4th stream not mandatory for me.

SD card slot

My switch's POE standard support.

Indoor IK10, outdoor IP66 or IP67 AND IK10 especially here.

[Jarsky]

Things have changed in the last year with some new products in Unifi.

 

Personally I'd swap out the USG-Pro-4 for a UDM Pro. 

Not only does it support up to 10Gbit SFP+, but it can do well over 1Gbit with full packet inspection etc...turned on, It has built in Cloud Key functionality to run your Unifi Controller, and it has a HDD slot and can run Unifi Video with a few dozen cameras. 

For the Switch, make sure you get the Gen2....they have SFP+ so you can link it to the UMD Pro at 10Gbit. It's POE+ so supports 802.3af/at and 24V Passive...so will work with everything in the Unifi range, and other POE devices you might get from other brands. 

 

Also there are new Unifi G4 Bullet's have just released which replace the G3 Flex, but are actually better than the G3 Pro. 

Theyre 1440p (2K) but considerably less in cost than the 4K G4 Pro's. 

[MoboMikey]

On 8/7/2020 at 2:14 AM, Jarsky said:

Things have changed in the last year with some new products in Unifi

Fantastic advice....again

 

I've had a quick look, and will probably make the switch to the UDM pro.

More research!

At least i've about 4 months to settle on the setup....

[GoldDragon007]

6 hours ago, MoboMikey said:

I've had a quick look, and will probably make the switch to the UDM pro.

Yes, it looks good, except if you have high res cameras, for that one HDD is not enough.

For me this product is kind of questionable. For NVR it's not too good, with it's single slot, for unify controller, you can do it from your plex server too, it doesn't use too much resource. Only the speed of the device is impressive, but it needs to checked in what condition. They have some products where some of the functions closing out another one. Usually hardware acceleration with DPI. And I would not expect top noch routing capacibilites with recording 10 cameras footage.

 

And I can tell you now, why I would suggest ES-48 instead of US-48. US doesn't have proper support for inter VLAN switching. Which will be a big advantage to have, if you want to move big amount of data between VLANs without hiting the trunk link at all (and therefore the router too). That's why I choosed the Edge series over the unify. This is what I've meant under advanced funtions earlier. And in that case you don't need a too powerful router that needs to handle all the traffic, just the service traffic (i.e. DHCP) and Internet. Kind of divide and conquere.

[MoboMikey]

16 hours ago, GoldDragon007 said:

Yes, it looks good, except if you have high res cameras, for that one HDD is not enough

Ah, well I'll be using my server to run a Blue Iris VM for the NVR function, and pipe storage to the NAS.

The UDM pro would allow me to merge the cloud-key and router as 1 unit, and also facilitate 10Gbps if required, from the WAN to LAN.

I would not be using the UDM Pro for NVR or switching.

16 hours ago, GoldDragon007 said:

That's why I choosed the Edge series

Yep, I'm still looking into the differences here

[GoldDragon007]

I'm curious actually about that cupboard. How it will look like, what will be made from. Just because it needs ventilation... I hope it's not wardrobe furniture.

[MoboMikey]

On 8/10/2020 at 7:04 AM, GoldDragon007 said:

I hope it's not wardrobe furniture

Yea, we will have a vent low down in one of the doors to let air in, and a fan vent in the ceiling to vent into the roof space.

should be fine

[GoldDragon007]

On 8/6/2020 at 2:19 PM, MoboMikey said:

Video Card: Gigabyte GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 8 GB GAMING OC 3X

In the server, what's the intended use of the video card? Only video decoding?

[GoldDragon007]

Hi @MoboMikey,

After a long time I've almost finished everything in my system, some integration is still missing with home assistant and some fine tuning, but it works everything (it seems at least).

On 8/6/2020 at 2:19 PM, MoboMikey said:

Yea, actually my PIL have been looking at Hikvision, do you have model numbers of what you're using? If they work with the Unifi PoE then I'm happy to recommend them.

I using these cameras at the end (powered from Edge switch 48):

6x Hikvision DS-2CD2183G0-IS records 4k@12.5
1x Hikvision DS-2DE4425IW-DE records wqhd@25
1x Hikvision DS-2DE2A404IW-DE3 records wqhd@25

The NVR is Blue Iris, with deepstack for motion detection on the same machine. Currently, the machine has 8 cores and 12 gigs of ram, but I think I will reduce it as it never goes over the CPU 20% (spikes from deepstack, the usual is 3%) and the ram 23%. Of course this is after optimalization. All continous + alert recording, with h.265+ coding.

The CPU is an Intel core i7 10700. Because this has quick sync, I don't need a GPU to encode the video for live view.