I have a prospect that wants an un Godly amount of available time that they can go back and retrieve recorded video. Can anyone think of any reason why I couild not just actually whenever the dvr fills up the hard drives in it, that I could just take out the hard drives in it and put in new ones. Store the old hard drives and then just have fresh ones to start out with. The thing is these people are willing to pay for this length of time. So I will do whatever to get it to them. Any thoughts?

is this a PC based system? And if it is does it have SATA support on the motherboard? Because you could run external SATA drives that would allow you to do this.

How much time do they need?

Dedicated has the BX2 with continous archive (hot swap), or the JBOD (just a bunch of disks). Or a PC system with a SATA raid.

I think you just need alot of storage, so why hot-swap?

how much is "un Godly" ???

like he said ... what kind of time? 2 months - 10 years?
Stand alone or PC ..? I Know with the GE they advertise up tp 10+ years storage, basically you can use external SCSI or their own Ditigal Archiving but it costs $$ ... I get 2 months on a 4 channel 40GB myself ...

wanting 2 years. I am atleast wanting 1 year hopefully 2 years since he is willing to pay for it. was wanting to use the icrealtime dvr.

consider using a software tool that reduces the frames. ie. trim 1 frame for every 2. ICRealtime does allow you to run other software so you might use a program like "Delanda" or "RemoveFiles" to archive it on a RAID type server.

I have 6 PC Based Servers running 65 camera's (3 IP's) at 640x480 motion. The originasl video is stored on the PC/Server, but is archived every night to a network drive...trimmed 1 for every 2. The network storage required for 30 days is at 1 Tb. These Servers are recording a very busy 8 - 5 public goverment area 24/7.

If ICRealtime can be accessed from another PC/Server and seen as a "hard drive" or netwrk drive the problem is not that hard to do.

it might be worth it to custome built the ICRealtime with a loop out to a PC based so that you can deliver both without too much bs. run the camera's into a patch panel and then loop to the ICRealtime and the PC based.......allow the ICRealtime to be the client interface and the PC based to handle the storage..........I believe a Dell SC830 with removable RAID would do the trick. Load the SC830 with a few hot swapable Tb and replace them every 3-4 months. You can even use a KVM for the monitor to save space/money.

If you try to get the ICRealtime or any other DVR to handle this your going to have one to many eggs in one basket? Seperate and conquer.

If all else fails, call NASA and ask them how they store all thier crap while in space.......... ha ha ha

I would say stick 4TB internal in the ICR DVR...and go from there. Setup the DVR at the minimal client acceptable settings and see how long you can get out of 4TB.

From using a couple different HDD calculators, not particularly for the ICR DVR but using H.264, 365days rec, 15FPS per ch., 15 hours a day it calls for 3548GB. If this is semi accurate you are looking at around a year for the 4TB internal. Now this could be way off, but why dont you see what 4TB can achieve.

How many channels are you going to be recording?

What is this you speak of?


(I asked for a demo at one time but never got a reply so I know jack about the ICrealtime's inner workings.)

GE lets you archive to any back up device you like ... you can get decades and decades .. ;-)

ge is the dvr we are replacing......so that would probably not go over well

this will be 2 16 channel dvr. 30 ptz's.

replacing a GE with ?? Makes no sense ...

what does not make sense? They were not satisfied by the GE so they wanted to put in something that was a more along the lines of what fit their needs. actually this is the second client that has swapped out a GE for an ICREaltime. And the other one just got a new GE 3 months ago. That goes to say that not every customer will like 1 particular product, regarless of what I or anyone else may think.
If they are willing to pay for it I will get it done. ( pertaining to surveillance systems ).

which GE DVR did they have?
switching out a high end DVR for a low end DVR, thats what doesnt make sense to me ..

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Originally posted by VST_Man:
If all else fails, call NASA and ask them how they store all thier crap while in space.......... ha ha ha
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Actually KB they don't store it...; they push the "flush" button and release it in to space. That's why I always wear a hat :shock:

actually the location that is upgrading and wants the massive storage they called me requesting a pelco dx8000. Saying that the dvr they now have and I quote" suck, and really are not what we need". It was a very very basic machine that was lacking any kind of features that made it stand out. I do know it was a dvmr . Small little box that looked exactly like what the old multiplexers look like. No knobs,no distinguishing features just rubber push buttons on the front.
Usually what i end up providing is a direct result of what I included in my presentation to the customer. But on this particular one I let him decide. Showed him several video from several DVRs and he choose the ICrealtime without hesitating. (very un common people will choose and decide on exactly what they want ).

not a GE then. the GE has a jog dial and a lot more. Its loaded with features.

said it right on the front

they must have got ripped .. :wink:

Yeah... maybe a GEneric DVR that got the rest of it's letters ripped off... :D

went back today to close the deal and I was wrong it did have a wheel on the front,. This must have been a real old piece. It was basically a multiplexer with a hard drive in it and a good luck wish. Must have been one of the first. Ya this will be an install I will have to get in on. Will be one of those have to stick around and play with systems. Will be trying the new panasonic wvcw954 SDIII outdoor 300x 30x optical ptz with auto tracking. Will be a total of 30 and the best part is we have to only hook it up because they have a company that has the contract for all cable and networking in that hospital. SWEET. So plug and play and play and play and play and play........

cool, go get them and post some shots .. :wink:
300x .. got a link?

oh when we get done with this job their will definitly be some video links.
About the 300x I dont have a link but if you get that panasonic spec cd it has all kinds of cool presentations with clips on the cd. Let me see if I can upload some of it to my site and then try to let you ftp some of it.

yeah im also thinking about some pano day night SD3 box cameras for the Club's car park area ... to replace the old exview box cameras we have there now ... really need the Wide Dynamic as they added so much more light ..

the PTZ sounds interesting ...

man I love them. they look excellent under applications others would just pretty much quit. I used to only attempt to put them in at the base but here lately have been able to get them out into the public. The color reproduction is beautiful compared to any other cam i have come across. It takes the whole behavior of old cameras (pretty much just reflectiing light into a viewable image...bad abnormal light conditiions = bad shot) and leaves it behind in the dust. The whole image processing and scaling of individual colors and combining the usuable ranges in the image to produce what would have been a "damaged" shot into a very clear image that was pretty much created by the camera.
It bllows just about any other camera out of the water. If you really want get some person to upgrade a system or get them open up the idea of spending some money, then just put a SDIII in place of one of their cameras for a week and I promise you they wont be able to stand looking at the rest of the cameras. It works all the time. Heck it worked on myself. About 7 months ago I started to put those in the systems desing and proposals for the base and got some in. Decided to check it out and ended up taking down every camera I had and putting up the SDIII instead. Its like it hurts my eyes to see others up against it.
I would definilty recommend trying atleast one out( thats what I did and ended up putting 13 on my PERSONAL system). People complain they are expensive but man they are worth every dime to me. Especially since those other cameras HURT MY EYES! :wink:

theyre actually less expensive than most of the other Day Nights, which dont have WD like itself .. i need to get one up for real, i had a client buy one a while back but he hasnt run the cable yet ,.,. or did you mean the 1/2" version? Actually i may need that one for the car park as it needs that kind of low lux color like the exview, but only better with the lighting ...

no I was talking about the 1/3". I have not tried the 1/2" Man I usually set the duration time on mine so that the camera will switch to bw as fast soon as it can on auto because the bw is just so clean.

Nightclub car park though, he wants color .. so he can identify cars ..
He does have alot more lighting now though than he originally had .. so should be okay, Id probably get the 1/3" just one to test as I dont think he would spend on the 1/2" anyway ...