Need Second Opinion on System Build

[Gaffgarion92]

Good afternoon,

 

I'm looking to do a somewhat complex system build, I don't have a solid spec in mind which is why I need a second opinion. What I intend to accomplish with this system is this:

 

1. To run 4-6 cameras at 1080p 8 FPS recording 24/7

2. To run a media server that my family can remote into anywhere and view family photos, videos, etc. in one central location

 

Currently, my plan is to take some NAS machine like a FreeNAS Mini box or a Synology box and run Windows for a recorder manager software such as Blue Iris while running a Windows VM for my family to RDP into as regular users and access a pooled drive. Alternatively, I had also thought of doing a lower tier Ryzen or Threadripper build, but priced out with the features I would need was pretty expensive. The idea here was to do a 4X6TB RAID 10 array and partition the pool of drives into an 8TB partition for recorded video and 4TB for media storage.

 

I guess my question is 1. Is this even possible with the way I'd like to do this? and 2. Is this recommended or are there better ways to do this? To me, the hardware in the pre-built NAS boxes doesn't seem like enough, and what would be adequate is terribly expensive. Most of the CPU load would be for video encode/decode, but I'd like to leave at least 2C/4T or 4C/8T for simultaneous multi-user login on the VM.

 

Any and all help is definitely appreciated, thank you in advance!!

[Electronics Wizardy]

What would the users do remoted in? I don't see the point of this?

 

How much storage do you want?

 

Id probably just make a basic system with something like a i5 8400 or ryzen 2700 and put windows and use storage spaces and hyper-v for vms.

 

Cores in vms are reserved, so they can shared cores.-

[Gaffgarion92]

5 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

What would the users do remoted in? I don't see the point of this?

 

How much storage do you want?

 

Id probably just make a basic system with something like a i5 8400 or ryzen 2700 and put windows and use storage spaces and hyper-v for vms.

 

Cores in vms are reserved, so they can shared cores.-

The idea was for my family to RDP(Remote Desktop Session) into this Virtual Machine so they can have a centralized location to host, view and share family photos and videos we wouldn't want to put up on Facebook or another social media site.

 

As for storage, I only want what I'll need and that's primarily dictated by the surveillance system I want to set up. I want to do 4-6 1080p cameras recording 8 frames/second 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I actually run an enterprise system where I work called Ocularis by ONSSI, however this software is not available for private consumers, only commercial and enterprise applications so I don't know how much storage I'll actually need for just a home NAS/NVR.

 

I know that virtual cores are what Virtual Machines look at when running under Hyper-V in Windows, I'm just an anal person who likes to split work evenly, I would prefer not to give the VM 3 virtual cores for example.. From what I've read, ECC memory is highly recommended for NAS/NVR applications, so a Ryzen or Core branded chip wouldn't be the way to go unless you get ECC working on Ryzen, right?

[Electronics Wizardy]

10 hours ago, Gaffgarion92 said:

The idea was for my family to RDP(Remote Desktop Session) into this Virtual Machine so they can have a centralized location to host, view and share family photos and videos we wouldn't want to put up on Facebook or another social media site.

Why not just have them mount the file share with the photos on them. Thats seems like a better solution.

 

10 hours ago, Gaffgarion92 said:

As for storage, I only want what I'll need and that's primarily dictated by the surveillance system I want to set up. I want to do 4-6 1080p cameras recording 8 frames/second 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I actually run an enterprise system where I work called Ocularis by ONSSI, however this software is not available for private consumers, only commercial and enterprise applications so I don't know how much storage I'll actually need for just a home NAS/NVR.

How long do you want to keep the footage, what bitrate? You can then calculate the amount of  space needed

 

10 hours ago, Gaffgarion92 said:

now that virtual cores are what Virtual Machines look at when running under Hyper-V in Windows, I'm just an anal person who likes to split work evenly, I would prefer not to give the VM 3 virtual cores for example.. From what I've read, ECC memory is highly recommended for NAS/NVR applications, so a Ryzen or Core branded chip wouldn't be the way to go unless you get ECC working on Ryzen, right?

Ecc is always nice, but you probably won't notice the difference here. Ryzen supports ecc along with i3's.

 

You can share virtual cores between vms, so you have more virtual cores than real ones on the host.

 

[Gaffgarion92]

8 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Why not just have them mount the file share with the photos on them. Thats seems like a better solution.

 

How long do you want to keep the footage, what bitrate? You can then calculate the amount of  space needed

 

Ecc is always nice, but you probably won't notice the difference here. Ryzen supports ecc along with i3's.

 

You can share virtual cores between vms, so you have more virtual cores than real ones on the host.

 

Would the Windows File Share solution allow them to map a network drive on their own PCs so they wouldn't have to remote in? If so, I'd be super down for that solution instead.

 

As far as footage goes, 30 days would be ideal but 14 would be my minimum. I don't know the bit rate I'll need off the top of my head, I'd be using whatever compression format comes with Blue Iris or other management software I could use. H.264 seems to be the standard, not sure if I have to license it or not though.

 

I thought ECC was sort of working on Ryzen, not fully except on Ryzen Pro? Either way, if it's recommended but not required then I may shave off some cost and go with cheap-o RAM.

 

For the VM, I would only plan on running one so if I used a Ryzen 7 chip, I'd be looking at a 4 virtual core VM and then the rest of the system resources dedicated to the NVR side of things.

[Electronics Wizardy]

12 minutes ago, Gaffgarion92 said:

Would the Windows File Share solution allow them to map a network drive on their own PCs so they wouldn't have to remote in? If so, I'd be super down for that solution instead.

yep thats exactly what it would do.

 

12 minutes ago, Gaffgarion92 said:

As far as footage goes, 30 days would be ideal but 14 would be my minimum. I don't know the bit rate I'll need off the top of my head, I'd be using whatever compression format comes with Blue Iris or other management software I could use. H.264 seems to be the standard, not sure if I have to license it or not though.

Look up the bitrate then get a calculator for how much storage you need.

 

12 minutes ago, Gaffgarion92 said:

I thought ECC was sort of working on Ryzen, not fully except on Ryzen Pro? Either way, if it's recommended but not required then I may shave off some cost and go with cheap-o RAM.

Fully supported, but not certifed, ecc will work fine.

 

12 minutes ago, Gaffgarion92 said:

For the VM, I would only plan on running one so if I used a Ryzen 7 chip, I'd be looking at a 4 virtual core VM and then the rest of the system resources dedicated to the NVR side of things.

If you have 4 cores for a vm, the nvr can use those cores if the vm isn't using them. What is this vm doing?

[Gaffgarion92]

42 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

yep thats exactly what it would do.

 

Look up the bitrate then get a calculator for how much storage you need.

 

Fully supported, but not certifed, ecc will work fine.

 

If you have 4 cores for a vm, the nvr can use those cores if the vm isn't using them. What is this vm doing?

Okay, that pretty much covers what I needed to know. Thanks for your help, it is greatly appreciated!