External Drive Recommendation

kayfersmum · Post by **kayfersmum** » Fri Oct 25, 2019 9:29 pm

Hi

I’m looking to purchase a new external hard drive to store BI footage onto. Are there any recommendations on what I should look for? Am thinking 4-6TB.

Thanks in advance

TimG · Post by **TimG** » Sat Oct 26, 2019 8:54 am

Hi,

I have a 4TB drive just for BI5 storage. It is an internal drive though. Recording the HD Dahua and two SD analogue cameras, and the HD Foscam all 24/7 (All as bvr files), gives me just over a month of storage. Can you fit another internal drive ? It is likely to be cheaper, and would be directly on the SATA interface.

It will be interesting if this fixes your overflow issue, as I still suspect it is two or more programs fighting for space. I do also have my "New" folder on another separate drive - a spare SSD in my case. This pc is HEAVY

TimG · Post by **TimG** » Sat Oct 26, 2019 10:49 am

If you have to use an external drive, what is the fastest interface you have available ? USB3 onwards would be the best, probably USB-C if you have it.

I would avoid Toshiba drives though. I had a 5TB Toshiba drive used only for monthly back ups. After just over a year, the internal usb interface failed. I moved the Toshiba drive into a different case - and the actual hard drive totally failed a few months later

ctfjr · Post by **ctfjr** » Sun Oct 27, 2019 1:50 am

I used 5 of these: https://www.amazon.com/Red-10TB-NAS-Har ... B0719498XY in my Synology NAS. They are made for NAS use (24/7) so I would expect them to last. Drives are relatively cheap now (and getting cheaper). I would get the biggest capacity you can justify paying for - you just never know what additional storage you will need in the future.

I am in the process of building a gaming machine for one of my sons. Even tho he won't need much storage I am putting a 4tb drive in there for storage and a 1tb NVMe for boot and program use.

kayfersmum · Post by **kayfersmum** » Sun Oct 27, 2019 11:55 am

Hi

I’m currently running a dedicated PC for Blue Iris linked to 19 IP cameras. The PC is a Dell Optiplex 7050, Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700 CPU @ 3.60GHz, RAM: 4.43G, 1GB hard drive running Windows 10 Pro and I have a Seagate STEB5000200 5TB expansion USB 3.0 Desktop 3.5” External Hard Drive.

Blue Iris is currently set up so that it stores New recordings to the local hard drive, then uses the External Drive for anything above that. Thinking about the over allocation issue (which is still ongoing) would it be better in the short term to direct all recordings to the external drive and not have any going to the PC Hard drive?

I’ve just come across Purple Drives on Amazon. Would it be possible or advantageous to install a WD Purple Drive onto the Dell PC and use that to store all footage and use the original hard drive for the program files?

I’ll make a few phone calls tomorrow to find out if our local PC shop would be able to put a new hard drive inside the Dell...

Thanks for your guidance

TimG · Post by **TimG** » Sun Oct 27, 2019 1:51 pm

Wow, that's some camera set up, and a fine pc for the job (As long as the hard drive is bigger than 1GB !). As long as it isn't a small form factor case, it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to get a new drive in the case - and it really is plug and play. WD Purple will do the job.

I would keep the BI new and stored folders away from the main Windows drive. Personally I do it because the Windows hard drive usually fails before other drives due to the constant writing to the page file etc, but in your case, it will indeed help to figure out what is happening with allocation, and if something else is fighting with BI for hard drive space.

Short term - try cutting the size of the New folder in half and see what happens.

Longer term - I would advise adding a WD Purple drive internally, using it for the New folder, and even as a storage folder if you like, although the external 5TB USB3 will cope with that.

kayfersmum · Post by **kayfersmum** » Sun Oct 27, 2019 3:03 pm

OOops yes 1TB!!

I’m disabled and use the cameras to watch the wildlife in the garden - become a bit obsessed

We post on YouTube and Facebook as Wilkys’ Wildlife Wonders

So I think, with your help, I may have had a lightbulb moment!

We bought the Dell PC I mentioned second hand so it could be dedicated to Blue Iris as we were getting so frustrated with the speed of our existing PC and not being able to use it productively. I’ve struggled with the new PC in exactly the same way as the other for 18 months, until just now, when I changed the path for both the New and Stored folders to the external drive. Now it appears to be running as I would expect it to - fast! Before changing the paths I deleted all the old footage from the PC drive and the external drive so that we are starting afresh today.

I have two questions, that I would appreciate your advice with:

1. All recordings now go to the 5TB external drive, split New 1TB and Stored 3TB (Alerts and Stored Alerts very low) - how would you recommend I set up the New and Stored folders? Should I continue in this way or allocate all storage to New? I mostly access the footage from the iOS app.

2. Currently the external drive is empty, would you expect the ability to access footage to slow down as this drive fills up with footage?

I’ll look into the option of including an additional hard drive within the PC itself.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

TimG · Post by **TimG** » Sun Oct 27, 2019 4:05 pm

1. I would keep the normal New and storage folders. It will make it easier if and when you add another hard drive.
2. It shouldn't slow down much as the external drive fills up. It would do if it was the Windows drive.
3. Make sure you don't use all of the external drive. Leave a bit free.

I think you have been suffering from the mechanical nature of a hard drive. If Windows is writing to the drive, then Blue Iris cannot until a small time has passed, simply because the read/write head is in the wrong position on the disc platters. I think New needs to be on a fast drive, and Stored is not so important as it doesn't have all cameras recording to it - it just gets data when BI cleans up the New folder. The database does need to be on the fastest drive though. If your system is now stable, then don't change much. Keep an eye on it.

kayfersmum · Post by **kayfersmum** » Sun Oct 27, 2019 5:36 pm

Thanks so much for your help. We have ordered the Purple Drive.

we can update the hardware and I can stop shouting at the PC - although it appears that I have already stopped that bad habit in the last few hours

Watching the wildlife in our little piece of Surrey

TimG · Post by **TimG** » Sat Nov 16, 2019 5:51 pm

Hi, kayfersmum, any progress here ?

Has it all settled down, or are you still getting hard drives filling up too much ?

Hopefully all is well