Using Raspberry Pi 4's versus a old computer

[davidma]

Hello currently I have 4 cameras running. One is slightly above 1080p. The other 3 are 720p. Framerates 12-15 fps. This is currently running on a old Dell workstation. The problem is it uses a lot of power and even the best home use battery backup system I can buy cannot power it for more than 15 minutes or so. So I was considering migrating over to Raspberry Pi 4 where I would presumably get over an hour of battery backup time.. Right now I have a 4GB model.

I was thinking maybe put the 1080p 12fps camera on it's own Raspberry Pi 4 4GB. Then put the other three 720p 15 fps on a Raspberry Pi 4 8GB model.


Do you think this is doable in my case? Or would this be pushing it?

[parky]

I would be interested to know as well as I too am running a workstation for ZM
My current thoughts are to an i5 motherboard that my neighbour dropped in our skip the other week as it will take about 50% the Z400 does

What are your thoughts on storage duplication as the cost of individual RPi's and disks might impact any cost saving ?

Edit: I must say this ability to run these high res cameras with so little horsepower is all down to the sterling work that the ZM devs do !

[davidma]

Hello, for myself cost isn't much of a concern as long as it is reasonable. I currently use a 500GB disk on the workstation and get at least two to three weeks retention. My current Pi 4 has a 250GB m.2 Sata drive. So if I buy another Pi and get another 250GB drive that would be about the same amount of storage. For the Pi 4 + case + m.2 drive it is about $150 - $200.

[dougmccrary]

The problem is it uses a lot of power and even the best home use battery backup system I can buy cannot power it for more than 15 minutes or so.

I've solved that by using a battery (35AH deep cycle), charger and inverter and a relay.
When power is on, the UPS (APC) passes the AC and charges the internal battery and the external battery.
On power fail, the UPS briefly takes over and then it gets its power from the external battery and inverter.
It keeps my z400 up for about three hours. I have other UPSs to keep the cameras up for most of that time.

[AnotherBrian]

i used a dell latitude e7450 i7-5600u 16gb RAM with 1TB SSD with 8 FHD cams at 5fps.
the running load was very low (record mode), very reliable, and the internal battery pushed it along during short power outages. SSD never seemed to degrade as some had said it would. remote web access was fast - skipping through videos was fast. small foot print.

unfortunately the SSD is msata which sucks because msata doesnt fit in the newer latitudes.
starting at e7X70, nvme drives are used. so cheap e7270 or e7470 works. i'm currently using 7280 i7 with 2gb ssd.


if interested in the msata SSD let me know.