6TB NAS for surveillance video

[paulgref]

i am in the design phase for a fairly large ip surveillance camera project for a client. i am looking at three 24 port poe switches, prob adtran, with 20 ip cams per switch running 2mb streams then uplinked to three 6TB NAS boxes via a gb link. there will be 3 "viewing stations" that will need to access any of the 3 nas boxes.

suggestions on nas mfg - i want to use 1TB seagate sv35 drives

potential problems, recommendations?

thanks for the help

pg

 

[thiggins]

You might look at Synology and QNAP given their support for IP cameras. They also have dedicated surveillance cam recording products.

 

[paulgref]

thanks Tim I will take a look at both. As far as networking this project what are your thoughts?

 

[thiggins]

thanks Tim I will take a look at both. As far as networking this project what are your thoughts?

Given the size of the project, I think others may be better qualified to comment on your choice of PoE switches.

 

[bliko]

For a system like this I would say a ups is essential.

PoE switches are the way to go.

How are your veiwing stations / nas & switch locations physically set up? I.e. are there three floors each with a security guard? or is there one security room where you want all the viewing stations + equipment to be stored? -- this can help determine how you wire everything together.

Will there be 20 ip cameras per nas?

If so; how will you backup each nas? Raid 5 does provide some protection; however what happens if the fan goes and all the disks die?

Also what happens if you get just two simultaneous disk failures? If you are buying the same drives from the same retailer; it's likely they will be from the same production batch (Since the retailer just gets a whole crate from the supplier)...therefore its possible they will have similar defects and fail at similar times. (I have seen this happen before)

To achieve 6TB in a 5-bay nas you would need 5X1.5TB hdds per nas

I have used the synolgy disk station before with 10 panasonic ip cameras when I helped a friend add surveilence to his office. It has preformed perfectly; and no problems have occured so far. The recordings are synced with a second disk station every hour, and image captures of motion detection outside of office hours are uploaded to the company's ftp site 'instantaneously'.

I haven't used any recent qnap products, but I would still recommend synology over any competitor to anyone using a nas for this type of thing. The surveilence station is extremely easy to use, and from my experience very reliable!

Also, depending on your situation / location, you may need to check that this deployment meets standards set by your client's insurers etc...

 

[paulgref]

Sever Room | Viewing station 1| Viewing station 2| Viewing station 3|
___________________________________________________________
<-50 ft->

just 3 offices next to the server room will be the viewing stations, server room has UPS setup but will doublecheck need to add more

20 ip cameras(mobotix)/nas
for backup the client is more interested in a hot swop where if one drive goes down they can just put another one in and be back up and going quickly - but this is something we need to address again

 

[bliko]

a backup is still recommended, since raid only protects against disk failure...other hardware failure can still cause data loss / make your system unavailable.

in your case, i would suggest you have:

16port gigabit switch - 24port poe with gigE uplink - 20xip camera
- 24port poe with gigE uplink - 20xip camera
- 24port poe with gigE uplink - 20xip camera
-nas
-nas
-nas
-viewing station
-viewing station
-viewing station
-ups (if necisary)
-uplink to main network(if necisary)

When i think about it; using nas' for such a large deployment seems kinda odd. Why not use an end to end solution from a company like panasonic? Or have a single server running software from the camera vendor?

Also, if the streams from the cameras really are 2Mbits, then a month's worth of recording will be ~37TB! Are you planning to use HD cams? if not, i think the streams/mpeg4 movies will be half to a quarter of that size/bandwidth.

You will also need to check the power usage of your cams and make sure the switch u choose has a high enough power budget.

 

[bliko]

Sorry, I just saw you are using mobotix cams...guess u really will hav that high a bit-rate if you're using their high end models. However, from their website it says that the frame rate is kept low (~1fps) when no motion is detected to reduce bandwidth and video size.

Also i've just checked, and synology products support a max of 10 cams:
http://www.synology.com/enu/support/help-page.php?q_id=382

Qnap products support a maximum of 20 cams ... this fits but leaves no room for expansion, and will stretch the system to its max:
http://www.qnap.com/images/products/comparison/Comparison_NVR.html

If you don't plan to use the survielence stations on your nas', these limitations wont apply since you will just be recording the video to an smb share. You will then need to have the mobotix software installed on the three work stations.

Since using a nas' survielance station is out of the picture, you just require a samba server, instead of 3 nas' it would be better to just have one storage device for recording everything, and then a replica device for backup. .... [Edit: If you really want to you can use a couple of nas' - it just means more devices to administer - not as neat]

You can configure your mobotix cameras to constantly record to your server or only on preset events; they will create a folder structure which makes it easy to find video from a specific camera at a specific time. -- your video log.

From the three stations, mobotix software can be used to monitor the live video and/or browse the server for previously recorded video. The stations themselves won't need to do any recording or capturing unless you are preforming some kind of analysis.

Sorry i didn't check those limitations before. i've also been looking at: http://www.mobotix.com/eng_GB/file/27357/mx_manual_software_en_150.pdf

Which mobotics cameras do you plan on using btw?

As i said before, it may save you alot of hassle if you just consulted a vendor (e.g. mobotix / panasonic...) and ask for a complete solution.

 

[paulgref]

the cameras will be set on motion so they wont be streaming 2Mb 24/7 - we just did an 11 camera mobotix install and we are getting 35 days on 2.5TB.

all the software runs on the camera not on an application server like panasonic or like a vms - milestone, onssi, etc - so you just setup a share on the nas box and it streams right to it for storage - their control center software will be on the 3 viewing stations which gives them the ability to display multiple cams on one screen and review video, etc

i'm getting input direct from mobotix, other storage vendors, colleagues, and sites like this one just to flush out potential challenges and i like to see how others would approach to find the best solution -- i became certified on mobotix last year

for this install i will be using the d12s, m22 and m12 - they will be set on different resolutions based on need - from 800x600 up to 3mp.

all mobotix cameras use just 3-4watts of power so the adtran poe switches will be fine

thanks for the input and suggestions.. i think i want to go with multiple storage units but im still debating

 

[bliko]

Ok, I think I better understand your requirements now, I guess storage is the main concern then.

If you want a nas I personally recommend synology (ds-508 in this case) because I've had good experience with them... However everyone has their preference on manufacturer. There are a lot of nas which will do the job you want. I would go for a product which has gone through a couple of firmware revisions since they are usually more stable.

 

[cbhattarai]

In this case i would like to have a combo pack and with ip cctv cams. The combo pack help me in getting quality within budget..

 

[stevech]

i am in the design phase for a fairly large ip surveillance camera project for a client. i am looking at three 24 port poe switches, prob adtran, with 20 ip cams per switch running 2mb streams then uplinked to three 6TB NAS boxes via a gb link. there will be 3 "viewing stations" that will need to access any of the 3 nas boxes.

suggestions on nas mfg - i want to use 1TB seagate sv35 drives

potential problems, recommendations?

thanks for the help

pg

At 20 cams... I think you should be looking at a system from Axis or their partners or some such. The video cam apps on the small NASes may not scale that well, and don't have the specific-use tailoring, for 20 cams, that specialized software has. But, I could be wrong. I have experience in large surveillance systems but not with Synology/QNAP - who I think are focused on say 4-8 cam systems. The focus should be on the ease of use in the archiving, recall, court evidence tagging, roll-out for lawful archiving, and so on, rather than hardware; hardware comes 2nd.