ZoneMinder Forums

Hello All. A customer has asked me to quote them a larger camera system (8 cameras, a mix between IP and cable). I have not used ZM in such a large environment. Are there any examples on the forum of someone using ZM for larger systems in a "professional" way?

Chris Curtis

There are people on here that have run 30+ inputs but you need to watch framerate etc. Yes 8 cameras isnt big

This got me thinking... Right now I have;

1 8 channel 240 fps system
1 12 channel 120 fps system (about 5-7 fpf per port)
1 16 channel 120 fps system
1 24 channel system (A 8 port 240 fps and a 16 port 120 fps card)
1 16 channel 480 fps system
...and some boxes in the office, at home... The ones above are in production.

PS: Peter, I should have your dev box up today.

Thanks James and lee for the information. I'll move forward on my project. I't just makes me feel better knowing what others have achieved.


Chris Curtis






[quote="Lee Sharp"]This got me thinking... Right now I have;

1 8 channel 240 fps system
1 12 channel 120 fps system (about 5-7 fpf per port)
1 16 channel 120 fps system
1 24 channel system (A 8 port 240 fps and a 16 port 120 fps card)
1 16 channel 480 fps system
...and some boxes in the office, at home... The ones above are in production.

PS: Peter, I should have your dev box up today.[/quote]

lee 480 fps? whats it on big blue?

I personally have had 8 channels 200 fps running comfortably on a AMD Athlon 64 x2 4400+ 2gb memory 1tb HDD about 1.6 load average, that is straight recording tho. No motion analysis.

jameswilson wrote:lee 480 fps? whats it on big blue?

Core2Duo with 2 gig of ram on a 64 bit system. I do not have it fully up yet (Takes a while to install cameras) so I may bump it to 4 gig. The 500 gig hard drive should cover 2-3 weeks. The same system as an 8 port (32 bit os) fills a 250 gig drive in about 10 days.

Hello all, new to zoneminder. This looked like a good thread for my question:

I can go with a Dell built box for my client, or build my own. They currently have about 8 analog cameras in place with cable and power, but the old VR died. I could see them going with more cameras, so I planned on using the PV-183 16 port. I would figure on some IP and wireless cams as well.
What do you think, and why?
A) Build my own in a 4u rack, using an intel chipset and processor(s), or
B) Let Dell build it for me?

A bit of background: I have this client on a freebsd fileserver, domain controller, and have other clients on various deb/linux/bsd mail/file/spam/fax/proxy servers. I'm not totally "green"
EDIT: Ah crap, one more requirement: The cables terminate in somebody's office. this thing will have to be quiet. Not something dell does well

I have a recommendation on the power supply if you go with a standard ATX box. I've quieted a couple of P4 dell systems (dimension 3000 and 4600) way down with a thermaltake purepower 430w PSU. It's a dual-80mm fan setup. I tried a coolermaster "quiet" PSU with a 120mm single fan, and the thing sounds like a jet engine. I first got the thermaltake one for my HTPC in the living room and I loved it so much I got a second one for my office. Cheap too, only about $40-$50. I don't work for them, just a happy customer so far. HTH...

Dell does not know the difference between "Chips" and "Chipsets" so be warned. I ordered 2 servers with Intel Chipsets. They came with an ATI chipset I had never heard of. The system would not post with the cards installed.

As to sound, I recently built myself a new system. I used this case. http://www.directron.com/vb8000bns.html It is solid, easy to work with, and quiet. I also used this power supply as I was not concerned with noise.http://www.directron.com/hp585dbox.html It is the only noise source, and it quite quiet, but this one is almost silent. http://www.directron.com/win550ub.html It has a big slow fan way inside the case. And HEC Orin PS units have been very good to me. I buy the 585 by the case to replace other brands.

Thank you both for the suggestions. I am leaning toward the build your own now, considering the noise issues and the availability of quality parts.
core2duo proc
2 Gigs of ram
80 gig seperate OS/DB drive ( cloned after a complete setup to a spare drive, I like that kind of backup after days/hours of configuration)
500 gig storage
They don't need much storage, or high framerates. Figure 12 cameras on the 16 port 240 card, running at 2 and alarming at 10?

I just do single 500 gig drives. Multiple drives can effect the "purge when full" filter, and now you have to points of failure.

A RAID5 wouldn't throw off "purge when full" and removes the multiple points of failure.
Linux also tries to set up a LVM if you have multiple drives anyway.

As for setups, I'm running a pure IPcam serve at 14 monitors @ 102fps total. 5 of those are at 640x480 with 15fps and all are at 24-bit color. The poor box is sleeping most of the day with a load of 1.41 (out of 4.0) currently, even though all the cameras are in modect aimed at high-traffic areas.

System Specs: (custom build)
Core2Quad QX6600
2 GB 1066 DDR2 RAM
4x250GB HDDs (gives me a solid 3 weeks, but watch out for your event totals...mine hit that mystical 32k mark unexpectedly...that was fun to sort out).

Noise issues aren't a problem with the right case.

Keep in mind that with LVM, if any drive fails, you lost all the data on all drives. Raid is another story, but be sure you are buying real raid, not fakeraid on a motherboard. See http://linux-ata.org/faq-sata-raid.html Real raid ain't cheap. 3ware has some nice stuff. The problem is that they know it is nice. http://store.3ware.com/?category=10