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+--- Thread: custom nas, basic surveillance camera and cpu recommendation (/showthread.php?tid=7991)
custom nas, basic surveillance camera and cpu recommendation - Enquiries - 11-26-2022
Looking to build a custom and low power NAS mostly for backups for now, motivated primarily by clutter of external HDDs (8TB WD Reds). Have experience with Linux and originally intended to follow the recommended advice of ZFS on RAIDZ1/2 for up to 6 drives max (if I need any more, I will replace an 8TB drive with 20TB ones); however, I realized I never need more than 1 drive on during the bi-weekly/monthly backup (I will do daily incremental backups to a Pi with an SSD attached) to these drives. Therefore, I'm thinking of only turning on the NAS 1-2 times a month for backup and leaving it off otherwise. In addition, I will be connecting these drives to the NAS via USB 3.0 instead of using them as internal drives because I only want to selectively turn on the relevant drives I need instead of spinning up all drives in a ZFS pool if I just need to backup say 20G worth of data or view a media file. I was a little skeptical of relying on USB interface, but I think it would be suitable for my purposes of backing up to 2 drives instead of the traditional raid setup that requires all drives in a pool to be up regardless of how much data is written to it. This should reduce both power consumption and wear and tear on drives (some people might argue NAS drives should not be spun up and down, but for my infrequent use I think it's worth it and considering the fact that most PCs involve daily shutdowns with regular HDDs, I would imagine NAS-rated drives are a little more durable than that).
Anyway, now I'm trying to decide which low power processor/motherboard to get (e.g. Celeron/Pentium/i3? 10-12th gen? Motherboard should have 6 USB 3.0 ports--I'm skeptical of USB hubs and their reliability, also potentially drawing more power itself than needed. Considering mini-ITX up to mATX). I think the most demanding use case for the NAS in the future is very basic home surveillance (just simply recording a video of the porch to see when packages arrive). For this case, I'm wondering what type of camera to go for. I want something that's low power and cheap. It only needs to do basic recording for me to view in real time and can be powered on/off remotely. It does not need tracking or AI. It should not require monthly subscription or the use of a potentially outdated client app, hence I'm looking for something that's open-source friendly and compatible with open-source home assistant software. Apparently I also want ONVIF compatibility and I guess PoE? It should only store videos in my server and will be restricted to an isolated network for security reasons (e.g. to avoid "phoning home"
. I was considering a DIY cheap solution like using an old webcam but I think something a little more robust and higher quality is suitable. At most I will only ever need up to 6 cameras. Do such cameras typically do video decoding themselves or is it better to rely on the CPU to do that, in which case that would affect the choice of CPU? Any suggestions on cameras is much appreciated (perhaps recommendations for outdoor and for indoor use). Quality doesn't need to be excellent, 720p/1080p is fine. Low power is the most important factor since the NAS is only serving myself. When using it for home surveillance, I'll probably have a a single SSD/HDD then and run the NAS 24/7.I should mention I typically have my desktop PC running 10+ hours a day and a Pi that runs 24/7 if either of these can take some load off the NAS so it can remain a lower power build (doubtful).
TL;DR: Looking for low power CPU that may or may not need video decoding depending if the surveillance camera can do it itself and recommendations for low power surveillance camera that doesn't need fancy AI tracking and is open-source and self-host friendly, not dependent on a third-party company for monthly subscriptions, data storage, or to their client mobile app interface.
Much appreciated.
RE: custom nas, basic surveillance camera and cpu recommendation - ed - 11-27-2022
I would still recommend a cheap NAS over a DIY NAS. Simple DS120j will allow you to set up surveillance. If you use Synology software, you only get 2 free camera licences.
But if you do not need any of these extras in CCTV, then you can set up cameras to simply record the footage/ movements.
Any FTP-enabled cameras will do this.
POE cameras do not require an additional power cable. But it is not a problem to have one. We recommend Reolink cameras https://store.reolink.com/gb/poe-ip-cameras/
Or you could go for TerraMaster, there seem to be no limits on cameras https://www.terra-master.com/us/terramaster_surveillance_manager
I hope this helps.