Building a CCTV computer - AMD AM1

Hi everyone,

I've recently been looking at making a home CCTV system for security. I've been looking at the Hikvision cameras as they seem good and people seem to like them.

I want to build my own PC to run these, I am only going to start with 1 camera one of the 3MP versions to start with but I will probably add 2 more down the road. I'm trying to make the cheapest computer to run these and I was looking at AMD AM1 CPU's, specifically the Athalon 5350 quad core. Along with 8GB of ram. Will this be powerful enough to run the system?

I'm also looking at getting a 3TB WD red hard drive to go with this. I'm assuming it will be enough space for basic use.

Also, I'm looking at getting the TRENDnet 8 Port 10/100MBPS PoE Switch - 4X 10/100 Ethernet 4X 10/100 PoE switch. will this be fast enough and have enough ports? The cameras only use 1 ethernet cable right?

Why not just get their NVR as well.

Think it'll be cheaper than your PC assembly.

More stable as well.

Hi everyone,

 

I've recently been looking at making a home CCTV system for security. I've been looking at the Hikvision cameras as they seem good and people seem to like them.

I want to build my own PC to run these, I am only going to start with 1 camera one of the 3MP versions to start with but I will probably add 2 more down the road. I'm trying to make the cheapest computer to run these and I was looking at AMD AM1 CPU's, specifically the Athalon 5350 quad core. Along with 8GB of ram. Will this be powerful enough to run the system?

 

I'm also looking at getting a 3TB WD red hard drive to go with this. I'm assuming it will be enough space for basic use.

 

Also, I'm looking at getting the TRENDnet 8 Port 10/100MBPS PoE Switch - 4X 10/100 Ethernet 4X 10/100 PoE switch. will this be fast enough and have enough ports? The cameras only use 1 ethernet cable right?

What VMS are you using? I know different VMSs have different CPU requirements. For example, I found Zoneminder to be a bit of a hog, while Xeoma is pretty easy on the CPU. I'm running 3 cameras similar to yours, full resolution record at 3Mb/s but motion detect at 640x480 and with a G1840 CPU I'm seeing only about a 15% load. I also put 8GB of RAM in the thing but it's way, way more than I needed.

Yes IP cameras with PoE need one cable only, and since there's not much point in streaming over 4Mb/s, a 100 Mb switch is plenty.

I have a little writeup about my setup. It might help you some. http://wirehead.net76.net/xeoma/xeoma.html