ZoneMinder Forums

Sorry for all the questions...I'm trying to quickly emerge myself into Zoneminder without losing my backside as surveillance is quite expensive...

I'm wanting to put this in a Business for surveillance. The reason I'm asking is that I'm about to buy a server and want to make sure I get a config thats recommended. I plan on buying the PV-183 so I can have plenty of video. I'm concerned after reading some posts about this..should I buy 2 cards with 4 channels each? Currently I only need 8 channels one being a PTZ.

2. What IP cameras do you recommend? This will be an indoor which varying levels of light depending on the day. I am looking at 3 right now.

3. IP PTZ camera for surveillance of an Scrap yard. I want it to be able to have good zoom as it's a big yard.

4. What do you think about the server? Is this enough muscle? I don't want a failure to occur so I'm thinking Raid 5 is this preferred?

5. Could someone point me to where i can learn about making sure files get purged?


Server:
Quad Core AMD OpteronTM 2350,4x512K Cache,2.0GHz,1Ghz HyperTransport, No Operating System Unit Price $2,316.00

PowerEdge 2970 Quad Core AMD OpteronTM 2350,4x512K ache,2.0GHz,1Ghz HyperTransport
4GB DDR2, 667MHz, 4x1GB Single Ranked DIMMs
Hard Drive 250GB 7.2K RPM Universal SATA 3Gbps 3.5-in HotPlug Hard Drive
Primary Controller PERC 6/I, x6 Backplane, Integrated
Backplane 1x6 Backplane for 3.5-inch Hard Drives
2nd Hard Drive 250GB 7.2K RPM Universal SATA 3Gbps 3.5-in HotPlug Hard Drive
Hard Drive Configuration Integrated SAS/SATA RAID 5, PERC 5/i Integrated, PERC 6/i Integrated
Chassis Configuration No Rack Rails Included
Hardware Support Services 3Yr Basic Hardware Warranty Repair: 5x10 HW-Only, 5x10 NBD Onsite
Installation Services No Installation
POWER SUPPLY Non-Redundant Power Supply
Power Cords Power Cord, 125 volt, NEMA 5-15P to C14,15 amp, Wall Plug, 10 feet (3 meter
3rd Hard Drive 250GB 7.2K RPM Universal SATA 3Gbps 3.5-in HotPlug Hard Drive

it's hard to recommend a config without knowing the resolution and framerate you'll be running the cameras at (i'm assuming you'll want color, because for b&w your config would be overkill). to give you an idea, i have 2x DCS-900 IP cameras doing modect (record motion) at 640x480*8fps = 2.5 megapixels/sec

using the SIMD (MMX) libjpeg library, my Sempron2600 1.8GHz is running at roughly 55% (yearly avg)...commited RAM avg is 762MB (sometimes spiking to almost 1GB)...load avg is 1.26

it's a text-only/server ubuntu feisty installation...here's the cpu/meminfo...

# cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 6
model : 8
model name : AMD Sempron(tm) 2600+
stepping : 1
cpu MHz : 1852.241
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mp mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow up ts
bogomips : 3706.92
clflush size : 32

# cat /proc/meminfo
MemTotal: 1294808 kB
MemFree: 28708 kB
Buffers: 0 kB
Cached: 1010664 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 397888 kB
Inactive: 727000 kB
HighTotal: 392128 kB
HighFree: 1236 kB
LowTotal: 902680 kB
LowFree: 27472 kB
SwapTotal: 4120664 kB
SwapFree: 4120424 kB
Dirty: 8 kB
Writeback: 0 kB
AnonPages: 114228 kB
Mapped: 89468 kB
Slab: 129584 kB
SReclaimable: 98432 kB
SUnreclaim: 31152 kB
PageTables: 1916 kB
NFS_Unstable: 0 kB
Bounce: 0 kB
CommitLimit: 4768068 kB
Committed_AS: 769480 kB
VmallocTotal: 118776 kB
VmallocUsed: 6240 kB
VmallocChunk: 112464 kB

The PV183 is a good card. I would still add heat sinks, however.

As to the server, Intel is the only chipset that fully supports all of the PCI specs. I have had too many issues with non-intel chipsets, and will no longer use them in DVRs. Also, go witha 500GB, or 750GB. You don't save enough money going to 250 to make it worth the short retention time.

For IP cameras, Axis is top notch.