Small Business Server Setup

[Agent Crimson]

Currently my Dad's business setup is quite jank, he runs a ubiquity edge router x at the heart of his network which frequently overheats and shutsoff, apart from that there are 40 IP cameras running from 2 different dedicated NVRs with their own phone apps to view and there is absolutely no redundancy of any video, the business billing software server runs on his personal computer with no redundancy what so ever and there are 2 computers which connect to that to bill and do accounting stuff. 

 

Should I make him a unified server for all the security cameras with data redundancy and a unified app to view everything? Or getting a bigger NVR is a better option? 

What should be the amount of storage I should go for to store a week worth of video with redundancy if 8 of the cameras run at 4k 30fps and rest run at 1080p 30.

If I go the first route what is a good nvm software solution? (Preferably which has no subscription and is easy to use with ability to use PTZ cameras. Easy for older people to use)

Would upgrading the router to a pfsense box make sense?

I also want to have a live backup of the whole billing software data to his home and my nas at my home. 

 

I know this is a lot of questions but this is my first time working with a nvm. Any Suggestions?

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id get a IT guy in thats knows what their doing.

 

Can you move the billing software to the cloud, that seems like a better setup.

 

What NVR devicces are you using now?

 

There are lots of calculatores for NVR storage needed, did you use them?

 

How do you know the edge router is overheating? THose boxes shoudln't normally overheat. What bandwdith is going though it?

 

 

[Agent Crimson]

10 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id get a IT guy in thats knows what their doing.

 

Can you move the billing software to the cloud, that seems like a better setup.

 

What NVR devicces are you using now?

 

There are lots of calculatores for NVR storage needed, did you use them?

 

How do you know the edge router is overheating? THose boxes shoudln't normally overheat. What bandwdith is going though it?

 

 

Its not that I don't know what I am doing, I just haven't played around with a lot of NVR stuff.

 

Getting the billing software on cloud is quite expensive and I have a few servers laying around so I would prefer to use em instead.

 

One is a Hikvision POE NVR and the other one is a Dahua Regular NVR.

 

According to the calculator I need around 11Tb of storage without counting redundancy. Currently he has about 6Tb of non redundant storage in one NVR and 3Tb of non redundant in the other one.

 

It shows temps around 88-90 and it also just stops quite often I switched it with a known good one just to see if its not an issue of the unit but the know good one also does the same. It sees about 200-300gb of cross network traffic everyday if I remember correctly might be more. It is the non 10gig version btw

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Agent Crimson said:

Getting the billing software on cloud is quite expensive and I have a few servers laying around so I would prefer to use em instead.

 

What servers do you have already?

 

Id probalby put a hypervisor on the hardware, then run a vm for the software, and use something like veeam to backup the vm and copy the backups to a offsite locations.

 

2 minutes ago, Agent Crimson said:

One is a Hikvision POE NVR and the other one is a Dahua Regular NVR.

 

Those can be fun and propertiery, and I have seen the cameras tied to the box, with no easy way to use a differnt diy NVR soltuion.

 

3 minutes ago, Agent Crimson said:

According to the calculator I need around 11Tb of storage without counting redundancy. Currently he has about 6Tb of non redundant storage in one NVR and 3Tb of non redundant in the other one.

 

Yea that seems about right. You probably can't make the storage redundant easily on those. Do you have a NVR budget for the upgrades? 

 

4 minutes ago, Agent Crimson said:

 

It shows temps around 88-90 and it also just stops quite often I switched it with a known good one just to see if its not an issue of the unit but the know good one also does the same. It sees about 200-300gb of cross network traffic everyday if I remember correctly might be more. It is the non 10gig version btw

That seems way too high, have you contacted support for the box? Does it fan a fan thats working?

 

Id probably get a premade router box, get a net gate one if you want pfsense, or Im a sucker for untangle. Really depend son the bandwdith you need and features.

[Agent Crimson]

1 minute ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What servers do you have already?

R720 and R620 got em off of eBay a while back for pretty cheap. 

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Id probalby put a hypervisor on the hardware, then run a vm for the software, and use something like veeam to backup the vm and copy the backups to a offsite locations.

I was thinking because the billing software just generates a proprietary file for each day of billing, I can just backup that whole folder and then have another server in his home rack that gets those files from his office and hosts a backup copy of the exact same server from there. What do you think. And what do you think is a good software to do this in?

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Those can be fun and propertiery, and I have seen the cameras tied to the box, with no easy way to use a differnt diy NVR soltuion.

I have that going for me that the cameras are not tied and are really open. Hikvision makes really good cameras and I have tried 4 nvrs (Hikvision, Dahua, CPPlus and one off brand one) till now and it was really simple to get em working. But I would love to make this a single no hassle setup for my dad cuz rn he often calls me with frequent issues wit current system mostly few cameras no initializing on restart and the app not working.

 

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Yea that seems about right. You probably can't make the storage redundant easily on those. Do you have a NVR budget for the upgrades? 

There is no budget he asked me to fix the system I got fed up and now I am thinking of ripping his whole system out and doing it properly with 123 redundancy with all the stuff I have, I don't have a set amount in my mind but I would like to do the whole thing under 1500$. That is including a good poe switch from eBay for all the cameras. 

 

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That seems way too high, have you contacted support for the box? Does it fan a fan thats working?

Edgerouter X is fanless he does have 2 140mm fan in the crappy Chinese networking cabinet he got for 30$ but that is not directly blowing on the erx. This normally runs around 60-70c being a fanless unit. Do you think the bandwidth is too high for it? The readout in the erx interface shows around 300gb of traffic from the cameras, but the calculator shows that its at least 1.5tb per day

[Electronics Wizardy]

Just now, Agent Crimson said:

R720 and R620 got em off of eBay a while back for pretty cheap. 

Yea those should work fine.

 

Just now, Agent Crimson said:

I was thinking because the billing software just generates a proprietary file for each day of billing, I can just backup that whole folder and then have another server in his home rack that gets those files from his office and hosts a backup copy of the exact same server from there. What do you think. And what do you think is a good software to do this in?

Id backup the whole vm. Makes it much easier to restore and roll back in case something happens.

 

Im a big fan of veeam for backups, but depends on the OS + hypervisor your using

 

1 minute ago, Agent Crimson said:

I have that going for me that the cameras are not tied and are really open. Hikvision makes really good cameras and I have tried 4 nvrs (Hikvision, Dahua, CPPlus and one off brand one) till now and it was really simple to get em working. But I would love to make this a single no hassle setup for my dad cuz rn he often calls me with frequent issues wit current system mostly few cameras no initializing on restart and the app not working.

 

Do you want a nvr or want to run it on the server?

 

Have you tried software like blueiris?

 

2 minutes ago, Agent Crimson said:

Edgerouter X is fanless he does have 2 140mm fan in the crappy Chinese networking cabinet he got for 30$ but that is not directly blowing on the erx. This normally runs around 60-70c being a fanless unit. Do you think the bandwidth is too high for it? The readout in the erx interface shows around 300gb of traffic from the cameras, but the calculator shows that its at least 1.5tb per day

What bandwidth in mbps are you seeing on average?

 

Those boxes should be able to run at max bandwidth without overheading, so I think there is a hardware issue, have you contacted their support?

 

3 minutes ago, Agent Crimson said:

There is no budget he asked me to fix the system I got fed up and now I am thinking of ripping his whole system out and doing it properly with 123 redundancy with all the stuff I have, I don't have a set amount in my mind but I would like to do the whole thing under 1500$. That is including a good poe switch from eBay for all the cameras. 

How much power do the cameras pull? id probalby get a poe switch here, makes it easy. Then setup a vlan for the cameras to be on. DO you want a new or used switch? There are lots of options. Might as well get a 48 port one here. Something like this is cheap for a new poe + 48 port gig switch https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-GS752TP-100NAS-Ethernet-Lifetime-Protection/dp/B00BGTPQO4

 

Or get a used one like a s2500, but those are eol, so be warned of that.

[Agent Crimson]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Do you want a nvr or want to run it on the server?

 

Have you tried software like blueiris?

I am tired of the stupidity that the NVR do and just the sheer pain they have given me and my dad so I think I would go with a server if that is better. I have not tried blue iris and I wanted opinions on the software I should use, I have heard a lot about blue iris but I don't know how good their mobile app is. Apart from that I am not sure the hardware this will use. A gpu? If yes then I will have to look for a way to put one in the r720. 

 

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What bandwidth in mbps are you seeing on average?

I am not sure the NVRs don't tell jack. ERX says its around 200-300gb per day but the calculator says its 1.5tb per day. That is around 130 ish Mbps for the latter which makes more sense. 

 

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Those boxes should be able to run at max bandwidth without overheading, so I think there is a hardware issue, have you contacted their support?

I did and they said that its a cooling issue and that might be true, but do I want to keep a fanless tiny router in this use case maybe not. I am on the edge if I should change it cuz If I do then this one will be a total waste as I don't have any use for this.

 

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How much power do the cameras pull? id probalby get a poe switch here, makes it easy. Then setup a vlan for the cameras to be on. DO you want a new or used switch?

Half of them pull 30w max and the rest do around 20w max. I was thinking to get a second hand one of eBay cuz good poe can get really expensive.

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, Agent Crimson said:

I am tired of the stupidity that the NVR do and just the sheer pain they have given me and my dad so I think I would go with a server if that is better. I have not tried blue iris and I wanted opinions on the software I should use, I have heard a lot about blue iris but I don't know how good their mobile app is. Apart from that I am not sure the hardware this will use. A gpu? If yes then I will have to look for a way to put one in the r720. 

 

They have a free trial, so id give it a shot. I haven't used their app much, but the web version and windows app works well

 

3 minutes ago, Agent Crimson said:

I am not sure the NVRs don't tell jack. ERX says its around 200-300gb per day but the calculator says its 1.5tb per day. That is around 130 ish Mbps for the latter which makes more sense. 

 

Id try slapping a fan on it and seeing how it goes. Otherwise go with a pfsense/untangle box, or get a premade unit for less issues and support.

 

4 minutes ago, Agent Crimson said:

 

 

Half of them pull 30w max and the rest do around 20w max. I was thinking to get a second hand one of eBay cuz good poe can get really expensive.

WIth 40 cameras, thats a lot of power. Something like a aruba s3500 can do it I think(check poe standards). But its gonna be very loud, and those are old switches now.