is 1gb router enough for 32 security cameras?

[haimbilia]

hi, im currently installing a camera system in my workplace, and i bought this nvr: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DB11VEJ which supports 32 ip cameras.

the cameras are mostly 5-8MP reolink cameras, like this one: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DnrQEwx.

im currently using an old router that starting to show signs of struggling as i keep adding cameras (picture lags and freezes).

so i need to buy a new router but all i can find 1gb routers, is it enough? i feel like it's not.

what do you recommend?

[Levent]

what is this 1GB you are talking about? How are you sure that your lagging and freezing is due to your router ?

[haimbilia]

gigabit router.

it started when i added more cameras, so i have to think it's a bandwidth issue, i tried replacing the switches it's not it. 

and the router is pretty old and crappy: https://aliexpress.com/item/32236491509.html (300mbps) so it's my first suspect.

 

[SupaKomputa]

Depending on the router, some router have concurrent user limit, on basic router is around 8-12 max connection.

For 32 simultaneous connections, i suggest you build a small pc dedicated for the routing.

[Alex Atkin UK]

18 hours ago, haimbilia said:

hi, im currently installing a camera system in my workplace, and i bought this nvr: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DB11VEJ which supports 32 ip cameras.

the cameras are mostly 5-8MP reolink cameras, like this one: https://s.click.aliexpress.com/e/_DnrQEwx.

im currently using an old router that starting to show signs of struggling as i keep adding cameras (picture lags and freezes).

so i need to buy a new router but all i can find 1gb routers, is it enough? i feel like it's not.

what do you recommend?

As that's an NVR is it not recording locally?  If so, your router is irrelevant as the traffic never reaches it.

 

Have to say I've not had much luck with Hikvision NVRs myself, have the same problem even though on mine the cameras are plugged directly into the NVR and I'm only using 2 out of the 4 cameras its meant to support.

[haimbilia]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

As that's an NVR is it not recording locally?  If so, your router is irrelevant as the traffic never reaches it.

 

Have to say I've not had much luck with Hikvision NVRs myself, have the same problem even though on mine the cameras are plugged directly into the NVR and I'm only using 2 out of the 4 cameras its meant to support.

all ip cameras are connected through a router. if yours are connected directly to the NVR it's because your NVR has a built-in router and switch (mine doesn't), they usually suck.

[Alex Atkin UK]

14 minutes ago, haimbilia said:

all ip cameras are connected through a router. if yours are connected directly to the NVR it's because your NVR has a built-in router and switch (mine doesn't), they usually suck.

Surely they are connected to a switch and unless they are accessing the Internet, the traffic wont touch the router, it will be going directly between the camera and NVR, or camera and client you are watching the stream on.

 

The fact a switch is connected to a router, doesn't mean all traffic is going via the router.  That's the whole point of a switch, it sends traffic directly to the right port for what is requesting it.  Only traffic to an IP address that does not belong to your LAN or the router itself, is sent to the router (if its your default gateway) where it decides where it needs to go to reach its destination, typically to a router at your ISP who then figures out which router to send it on to next, which keeps happening router to router until it reaches its destination.

[LIGISTX]

25 minutes ago, haimbilia said:

all ip cameras are connected through a router. if yours are connected directly to the NVR it's because your NVR has a built-in router and switch (mine doesn't), they usually suck.

Unless your router has 32 ports, you are definitely connecting through switches. And as stated above, switches will send traffic directly to the MAC address the data is intended for, and unless the only way to get to the intended MAC address on the local network is via a route through the router, the data will never actually traverse the router. 
 

That said, if you are overloading a switch (basically, just a terminology issue here, your initial unquestionable is valid, just replace the word router with switch), that could be an issue. Theoretically it should be fine, but depending on the network topology you may have issues. 
 

How is this network setup? That would help shed some light on potential issues. 

[Alex Atkin UK]

I just checked and that router only has 100Mbit ports so you definitely only want to have one switch plugged into the router, and any other switches plugged into THAT switch.

 

Although it doesn't hurt to daisy-chain switches, you reduce the chance of bottlenecks by having a dedicated main switch.  At the very least make sure the NVR and cameras are all on the same switch so they have a direct path back to the NVR without causing a bottleneck on the LAN between switches.

[haimbilia]

On 11/22/2023 at 9:04 AM, Alex Atkin UK said:

Surely they are connected to a switch and unless they are accessing the Internet, the traffic wont touch the router, it will be going directly between the camera and NVR, or camera and client you are watching the stream on.

 

The fact a switch is connected to a router, doesn't mean all traffic is going via the router.  That's the whole point of a switch, it sends traffic directly to the right port for what is requesting it.  Only traffic to an IP address that does not belong to your LAN or the router itself, is sent to the router (if its your default gateway) where it decides where it needs to go to reach its destination, typically to a router at your ISP who then figures out which router to send it on to next, which keeps happening router to router until it reaches its destination.

thank you for the info but im confused, if the switch is not connected to the router, who assigns the ip addresses? every installation map i have seen show to connect the switch to the router and connect the nvr to either the switch or the router.

[Alex Atkin UK]

6 minutes ago, haimbilia said:

thank you for the info but im confused, if the switch is not connected to the router, who assigns the ip addresses? every installation map i have seen show to connect the switch to the router and connect the nvr to either the switch or the router.

If its the only switch then yes, connect it directly to the router.  However if you are then trying to view the cameras over the routers WiFi or from anything plugged into a different port on the router, its going to bottleneck on the 100Mbit router port if you view too many at once.

 

So if its a WiFi problem then using a separate WiFi Access Point plugged into the switch would solve that.

If its wired client problem, they also need to be in the switch to bypass that 100Mbit port restriction.

If your Internet is supposed to be faster than 100Mbit, then replacing the router with something better is going to pretty much solve everything.

[haimbilia]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

If its the only switch then yes, connect it directly to the router.  However if you are then trying to view the cameras over the routers WiFi or from anything plugged into a different port on the router, its going to bottleneck on the 100Mbit router port if you view too many at once.

 

So if its a WiFi problem then using a separate WiFi Access Point plugged into the switch would solve that.

If its wired client problem, they also need to be in the switch to bypass that 100Mbit port restriction.

If your Internet is supposed to be faster than 100Mbit, then replacing the router with something better is going to pretty much solve everything.

ok, i understood what you are saying, i will connect the switch to the NVR and see what happens. i will report.

[mariushm]

The cameras send a compressed stream, the bitrate will depend on the quality resolution and codec you chose ... I would guess maybe in the 10-40 mbps for each camera. 

 

If the NVR has two gigabit ethernet inputs for cameras, you could use a couple 16-24 port gigabit switches otherwise a single 48 port gigabit switch would be plenty ... put 12 cameras on a 16 port switch and even if one camera has a 50 mbps bitrate, you'd have 12 x 50 = 600 mbps, so the switch should be able to push that much out. 

 

With a single switch, you'd want less than 30 mbps per camera, as 32 cameras  x  30 mbps  = 960 mbps. and you want to stay below 1 gbps (assuming that's the maximum input bandwidth of a single ethernet port)

[haimbilia]

5 hours ago, mariushm said:

The cameras send a compressed stream, the bitrate will depend on the quality resolution and codec you chose ... I would guess maybe in the 10-40 mbps for each camera. 

 

If the NVR has two gigabit ethernet inputs for cameras, you could use a couple 16-24 port gigabit switches otherwise a single 48 port gigabit switch would be plenty ... put 12 cameras on a 16 port switch and even if one camera has a 50 mbps bitrate, you'd have 12 x 50 = 600 mbps, so the switch should be able to push that much out. 

 

With a single switch, you'd want less than 30 mbps per camera, as 32 cameras  x  30 mbps  = 960 mbps. and you want to stay below 1 gbps (assuming that's the maximum input bandwidth of a single ethernet port)

yes i have 2x gigabit ports on my NVR. so should buy 2 16 port gigabit switches? and just connect both of them to the nvr? i use poe if it makes a difference. poe switches have 2 uplink ports so i can connect the router to one of these.

[mariushm]

Well, if you want to attach 32 cameras, you will need at least 32 ports ... if you buy a 16 port switch, you'll have 15 ports used by 15 cameras, and one port connecting to the NVR ... so in total you'll have maximum 30 cameras. 

 

So I would say go with 24 port switches or higher... You could connect one of the switches to the router on one free port in case you want to access the NVR from outside (you configure port forwarding or whatever is needed on the router). 

You don't want the camera traffic to go through the router, you connect the cameras directly to the switch ...

 

You may want to get a switch with PoE so that you power the cameras through the ethernet cables... and then again, a higher number of ports may be preferable because such switches would have a higher power budget.   

Let's say for example that each camera consumes 10 watts - then 16 cameras to a switch would use 160 watts -  a 16 port switch with PoE may come with only 90w budget, while a 24 port switch may come with a 200-250w PoE budget. 

 

For example, here's a 16 port switch, it comes with only 120w poe budget : https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-TL-SG116P-Priority-Isolation-Recovery/dp/B0C4X7VZV9/

 

Going back to 24 port switches, for example if you want cheap , see  24 port tenda with 250w budget : https://www.amazon.com/Tenda-Unmanaged-Ethernet-Wall-Mount-Protection/dp/B0BCR7SLWH/

 

If you want a bit more quality, 26 port netgear with 190w budget : https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-24-Port-Gigabit-Ethernet-Managed/dp/B071J24KX7/

 

You could also go used/refurbished 

 

for example $50 for  48 x 100 mbps with poe 380w budget HPE / Aruba J9781A  https://www.ebay.com/itm/355198225775?hash=item52b376cd6f:g:O6MAAOSw9FhlLfji

description is slightly incorrect, it's not 1 gbps, it's 48 x 100 mbps ports, plus 2 1 gbps RJ45 ports and 2 SFP (1gbps) ports.  So the traffic on those 48 ports can go out the gigabit port(s).

 

You'd have to use 2, because you'd split the cameras across the switches, as you don't want to exceed the 1 gbps uplink speed, and each camera on its own won't hit 100 mbps so the switches would work. Downside is these switches may be NOISY.

 

 

[haimbilia]

41 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Well, if you want to attach 32 cameras, you will need at least 32 ports ... if you buy a 16 port switch, you'll have 15 ports used by 15 cameras, and one port connecting to the NVR ... so in total you'll have maximum 30 cameras. 

 

So I would say go with 24 port switches or higher... You could connect one of the switches to the router on one free port in case you want to access the NVR from outside (you configure port forwarding or whatever is needed on the router). 

You don't want the camera traffic to go through the router, you connect the cameras directly to the switch ...

 

You may want to get a switch with PoE so that you power the cameras through the ethernet cables... and then again, a higher number of ports may be preferable because such switches would have a higher power budget.   

Let's say for example that each camera consumes 10 watts - then 16 cameras to a switch would use 160 watts -  a 16 port switch with PoE may come with only 90w budget, while a 24 port switch may come with a 200-250w PoE budget. 

 

For example, here's a 16 port switch, it comes with only 120w poe budget : https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-TL-SG116P-Priority-Isolation-Recovery/dp/B0C4X7VZV9/

 

Going back to 24 port switches, for example if you want cheap , see  24 port tenda with 250w budget : https://www.amazon.com/Tenda-Unmanaged-Ethernet-Wall-Mount-Protection/dp/B0BCR7SLWH/

 

If you want a bit more quality, 26 port netgear with 190w budget : https://www.amazon.com/NETGEAR-24-Port-Gigabit-Ethernet-Managed/dp/B071J24KX7/

 

You could also go used/refurbished 

 

for example $50 for  48 x 100 mbps with poe 380w budget HPE / Aruba J9781A  https://www.ebay.com/itm/355198225775?hash=item52b376cd6f:g:O6MAAOSw9FhlLfji

description is slightly incorrect, it's not 1 gbps, it's 48 x 100 mbps ports, plus 2 1 gbps RJ45 ports and 2 SFP (1gbps) ports.  So the traffic on those 48 ports can go out the gigabit port(s).

 

You'd have to use 2, because you'd split the cameras across the switches, as you don't want to exceed the 1 gbps uplink speed, and each camera on its own won't hit 100 mbps so the switches would work. Downside is these switches may be NOISY.

 

 

wow, thank you for all the info, when i say 16 ports i mean the ones with 2 extra uplink ports, like this one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32887512145.html

[Needfuldoer]

On 11/23/2023 at 11:04 AM, haimbilia said:

wow, thank you for all the info, when i say 16 ports i mean the ones with 2 extra uplink ports, like this one: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32887512145.html

The "uplink" ports on those are just the ports that don't supply Power Over Ethernet.

 

You don't need a switch with SFP optical ports.