Blue Iris - Re-install on Fresh Install of Windows

[BruceH]

If you are looking for the current version of BI, just go to this link
https://blueirissoftware.com/#download
and click on the link for "DOWNLOAD V5 ~100 MB", just to the left of the "PURCHASE FULL VERSION"

[TimG]

Also probably a stupid question but the license key , the majority is hashed out ? Is there a way I can reveal it or obtain it via a different means, I seem to have misplaced my original key.. I'll have to look for the original invoice .. Ahh I also think that Blue Iris support must have asked for it before when submitting support requests via email, so I'll check my sent items.. I presume without the full key I won't be able to active the product , once I've deactivated it and re-installed windows fresh ?

If BI5 is still working, you can use the button in Settings to copy your details to send to Support. Paste it somewhere. It should be in that info.

[IAmATeaf]

Just download the full install and also make sure you have the relevant update as well. Straight after performing the full install install the update then launch BI to add your licence code.

[Sardon]

Well, that worked out well. Great stuff!

There were a few snags; it didn't retain some of my camera user credentials, but that wasn't a problem. The strangest thing of all is that, prior to wiping the machine and reinstalling Windows & Blue Iris, when an alert was sent to my phone, it stopped sending a thumbnail. This happened because I had closed off ports to prevent web scanning, and I accessed my network through a VPN to Blue Iris via the mobile app. I would only receive an alert. In fact, I created another post on here about this issue.

However, upon reinstallation of Windows and Blue Iris, I was taken aback when I tested a motion detection alert and it came through with the thumbnail. Very odd, but yes, I now get alerts for motion detection with a thumbnail, which is great.

One last question while I'm here: I have an extra hard disk, a 3TB WD Black edition, taken out from my old computer, which I can use on the PC that now just runs Blue Iris.

According to some posts I've read here and online, they state that the best practice is to split the cameras and record to different drives. I was thinking of just letting the footage pile up in the new folder and then moving it to 'stored', which will be located on the 3TB WD Black. The reason is that it'll keep the dates of footage captured consistent rather than having different dates for captured footage depending on different drives.

I know for a fact that my 3 Foscam cameras capture data for around 4 weeks alone, but since I added a 4K Annke camera, that's been reduced to 2 weeks. So, I'm concerned that if I split the drives, the Foscams will capture for a month, but the other drive will not be in sync.

Any suggestions or best practices for 2 HDD drives, a WD Purple 2TB and a WD Black 3TB? Oh, also, does it matter where the DB file resides? It's only about 400MB. That doesn't need to go on an SSD, does it? Or would moving it to an SSD be beneficial?

Thanks again to everyone who posted on here. I'm happy that Blue Iris is now back up and running with minimal downtime thanks to the advice received!

[TimG]

1. The simplest thing to do is to daisy chain the storage drives so that video for every camera cascades down and is the same age. This makes you move the video clips numerous times so uses more system resources and increases drive wear. Not a major problem if you HAVE those resources. Any hard drive failure loses some of your clips for a period.
2. The second method is to pool the two storage drives, which gives Windows one large storage drive for BI5 to use, and keeps the video for every camera at the same age. This removes one video clip move and saves resources and hard drive wear. Any hard drive failure loses all storage of your clips (Unless redundancy was built in).
3. The split drive method. This probably works best if your cameras are all the same resolution so that you can equally split them between the drives, otherwise it takes experimentation. Any hard drive failure loses clips for the cameras using it.
4. Any of the above and a NAS backup.

It really depends what your requirements are, and how bothered about system resources and hard drive wear you are.

What do I do ? I daisy chain and cascade and it looks like this:

Not best practice.

Screenshot 2023-12-29 120818.png (25.15 KiB) Viewed 20307 times

E: Is a 1TB SSD formatted as 750GB to reduce wear. It contains the database, Alerts, New and Faces.
F: is a 14TB CCTV drive for "Storage".
G: is a 4TB CCTV drive for "Storage2".

Is it the best method ? Probably not, but it works for me. Note that I keep all BI5 storage and database away from the OS drive, and leave headroom on each drive to prevent over-allocation.

[Sardon]

How does one daisy chain ? Wouldn't it be more simple for me in the most basic sense if I just add the new drive to my PC and set it as the stored location and use that to move all footage from drive A (new) to drive B (stored) ?

[Sardon]

You'll probably laugh but I have to share as I'm not sure what to do ..

Here are my settings for my drive. I'm not even sure why it's setup this way, I probably accepted the defaults.

D - New.jpg (23.13 KiB) Viewed 20302 times

D - Stored.jpg (23.82 KiB) Viewed 20302 times

So I have files in new and stored on the same drive.. I would like to preserve this footage if possible. I've only ever used one drive and also for that matter I don't know why I just didn't change it to retain everything in new and then delete as it approaches the 2TB limit. Now I have files distributed between New & Stored on the same 2TB drive.

Depending on what solution to opt with I'm thinking just moving stored to stored on another drive and changing the limits .. for the D:\New to 1.8TB and E:\Stored to 2.8TB catering for a little headroom.. but by moving this all across now , won't it mess it all up all my footage?

What if I simply moved everything that is in stored in stored back into new , change the limit to near max capacity, Is that even an option and would it even work ? Then I'm presuming , the system will know it's near max capacity and start moving to the other HDD.

Sorry for all the dumb questions, but worst case I'll delete all footage and start over.. no big deal

[TimG]

Hi, 'New' and 'Stored' on the same drive is a waste of resources. There is no point in doing that, and if you only had the one drive we would recommend one folder only, i.e. you could just make 'New' large enough to fill a drive.
Moving from 'Stored' to 'Stored2' is as simple as your 'New' to 'Stored' move from the 'New' folder. You then do the same for the 'Stored' folder and move files to the (previously set up) 'Stored2' folder when 'Stored' is full. 'Stored2' would then have the Delete command for the oldest files.

As an example, my settings look like this:

New to 'Stored'. New fills up in a few days, so I added a 10 day catch all:

Screenshot 2023-12-29 134309.png (55.53 KiB) Viewed 20298 times

'Stored' to 'Stored2' when full:

Screenshot 2023-12-29 134501.png (58.37 KiB) Viewed 20298 times

And 'Stored2' to be deleted when full:

Screenshot 2023-12-29 134657.png (58.07 KiB) Viewed 20298 times

[TimG]

As for moving footage, stop BI5 (Including Service if used) and move the folders. Restart BI5 and click the green shield to dis-arm your system. Reset the storage settings to match the new folders and drive sizes. Then rebuild the database to catch the changes and enable the shield (Goes green).

Follow that up with a look at Status/ Storage to verify your settings are OK and you haven't under or over allocated any drives. Mine look like this:

Screenshot 2023-12-29 140327.png (107.86 KiB) Viewed 20298 times

[Sardon]

Ok I'll do just that Thanks TimG