Home(file)server with video surveillance setup on miniITX?

[wiley_e]

Hello,
since i want to set up a homeserver (mainly as mail-/printer-/fiileserver - no video streaming or somesuch) and also want to start some video surveillance my idea is to set up a system based upon a miniITX bord which could do both with minimum power consumption.
I thought of either a VIA EPIA EN12000EG or a Jetway J7F4K1G2 P 1200MHz as a basis, equipped with 1 GB RAM.
For the video part i wanted to go with a cheap 4-port 60fps PCI card. I'm starting by using only two of them, probably with s/w cams, and i think for the motion detection a framerate of 1-3 fps per channel would be absolutely sufficient.

Does anybody here have experience with that sort of setup?
Thanks for your thoughts!

[technicavolous]

I've done 4 port (pico / peaque 30 fps cards) systems with 1 GHz processors just fine. I have a miniITX but the older 800 MHz version. I love the board, but never tried it with ZM. It worked fine with the junk windows program that comes with the pico's. I bet it'll work.

.

[RoundSparrow]

In the next week I'm going to try the new Everex TC2502 for ZoneMinder.

Wal-mart is selling these in the USA for $200. And it has a miniITX motherboard...

http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product. ... id=7754614

You can get the motherboard AND CPU for $60 as Google is promoting it too.

gOS Develop Kit with VIA pc-1 Processor Platform VIA C7-D 1.5GHz CPU + VIA CN700 Chipset Motherboard Retail PC2500E

http://www.clubit.com/product_detail.cf ... o=A4842001


Is exciting to be able to get MiniITX with CPU for such cheap prices. This seems to be the year where you don't have to pay so much for standard x86 systems for small applications.

[wiley_e]

Hello all, the project is still vacant but i hope to start the realization soon.
Meantime a few new items have emerged that triggered my interest.

First off there ist the Chenbro ES34069 casing. It's obtainable for nearly 200,- Euros by now. It's not exactly cheap but it fit's my demands just perfectly it seems. For a homeserver designed for passive cooling, allowing for up to 4 harddrives i cannot imagine i better casing. And at least the power supply is fully included.

So the problem that comes up is connecting 4 SATA drives. The boards i intended to use in the first place all come with only two connectors. So i would have to use the PCI slot for extension - right?
But there goes the Video-solution with a cheap 4-port card.

So the seemingly perfect (at first glance - any better ideas anyone?) solution could be the new VIA EPIA-SN 10000EG board that comes with 4 SATAII-connectors. Ok, that again is a little more expensive than the solution previously envisioned

But that board only has a PCIe Slot, so again no chance for the Video-solution with a cheap 4-port card.

So here comes my main question (apart from your general opinion on such a setup of course): Does anybody here know of a rather cheap PCIe 4-Port-Videocard?
Since the project financially is somewhat borderline already a Videocard for $200,- or more is not an option.

Alternatively i could imagine using USB-Frame-Grabbers. These are available rather cheap by now. And since i intend to start with two cameras/ports anyway, the solution would be a little more expensive but somewhat scalable.
Does anybody have experience with a similar setup (~miniITX with 1GHz VIA CPU or similar with multiple videoport application)? How's LINUX driver support for such USB devices?

Any comments appreciated!

[narmar]

the chipest pcie card i found here:
http://store.bluecherry.net/4_port_vide ... pv-981.htm[/quote]

[wiley_e]

Yeah, thx! I scanned the net a bit and that was also the best price i could come up with.
The LINUX support they advertise also makes that one interesting.