Soundy

Sorry I am not posting this on the open forum. PM then? Dealer forum? Is this something proprietary? If it's something I can just google, I don't see the point in being so secretive.

No problem. The good news is, you have LOTS AND LOTS of options out there.

Such aaaassssss.........?? USB - unreliable physical connection Firewire - harder to find and generally more expensive; also unreliable physical connection eSATA - do any arrays consolidate to a single eSATA port? Network - lots of protocol options, but some are unreliable (SMB), others can be complex to use (NFS)...

So what other methods are there for attaching multi-disk arrays, other than by network? I haven't seen one that has an eSATA port.

I've had more problems with USB-attached externals dropping off... generally "fixed" by simply un-plugging and re-plugging the USB cable, but something that requires physical intervention is not really a solution.

That still doesn't tell me anything. Is the actual mount a larger diameter, is the back of the lens too long, is the thread different... what's "too big" about it? Is this the camera in question? If so, it takes a standard C/CS-mount lens... if the Comiscar lens is "too big" then it's possibly something old and/or non-standard.

This may actually be an instance where a "big-box-store" package system would suffice, since they don't need uber-high quality or the ability to ID shady people at a distance

This thread should help you - its OP was doing the same kinda thing you are: viewtopic.php?t=23733

That's a nice unit... I've installed one or two of those... three or four more of the TS-809U-RP (the rackmount, dual-redundant-PSU version of it). The QNAPs have been really solid units for me, and their tech support has been pretty responsive. Only thing they still can't do is allow me to map iSCSI targets over 2TB - XP's disk manager won't see them. They keep telling me it's a limitation of XP's MBR system and that it's just not possible, but the Enhance Tech arrays have no problem with it.

Possible the drive is failing... WHY did you format it?

Define "does not fit".

Bosch has a great document explaining a lot about various CCTV specs, including the difference between standard and IR-corrected lenses (see page 3 of the above doc). Like dvarapala says, you CAN use an IR-corrected lens on any camera; there's just no point in the extra expense if the camera is filtering the IR anyway. IR-corrected lenses aren't limited to IR-LED-equipped cameras, either. True-Day/Night cameras need them to correct for IR's different focal plane that can result in poor focus when the camera is in night mode.

Do you mean the camera must be compatible with the software and OS that is run on my NVR? I can run either Windows 7 32/64bit or any flavor of Linux OS 32/64 bit. I believe ZoneMinder and Exacq works on Linux. Exacq also works on Windows and offer a trial edition. OS isn't relevant, but the NVR software must support your camera(s). Exacq is also available for Linux, BTW.

So, replace "you" with "they" Do you know if they were using it with Windows or Linux? Maybe they were using an earlier QNAP firmware or earlier iSCSI initiator on the PC? I dunno, I just know it's worked great for me (touch wood).

That's bits, not bytes - the bandwidth monitor has options for both, I checked. The cameras are set to stream at 15fps; the DVR is sampling at 10fps (for live display and motion detection) and recording at 2fps. All are running at full 1.3MP (1280x1024). It's been running for better than a week, so those numbers are the average over that time; there are spikes to around 35Mbps. Using this utility: http://www.bwmonitor.com/ Just jacked all the cameras to 5fps recording... average for the past few minutes (middle of the dinner hour, so it's busy in the site) is running about 67.5Mbps down (from cameras and NAS), 57Mbps up (writing to NAS). Since it's a GbE connection between DVR and NAS, the network shouldn't even be breaking a sweat. And yes, the iSCSI reconnects without fail, whether I power-cycle the DVR, the NAS, or both. SMB shares don't always, which is why Vigil doesn't support mapped network drives (they said they tried it at first and had too many problems), but iSCSI is designed for better fault tolerance. I might suggest that if you had trouble with it, you were working with a poor implementation.

Granted.... but that all falls far outside of the original question, and doesn't sound like something they're particularly concerned about.

Depending on the specific site, anywhere from three to six cameras... most of them IQ or Arecont; some are moving to 3xLogic (HIKvision) now. Just did some bandwidth metering on one of the sites recently, using five IQ511s... traffic into the DVR at this moment (cameras and NAS traffic combined) is running about 12Mbps average; traffic from the DVR TO the NAS is averaging around 8Mbps - that includes the IP cameras, plus the 24 other analog cameras recording at D1. All sites are running Vigil DVRs, so the MJPEG streams are being recompressed with their AZTECH codec. This particular unit is an Enhance Tech NAS, but we've also got QNAPs on several sites, and the iSCSI works flawlessly with all of them. All the DVRs have an internal drive set as a "backup" destination, so if the NAS does go offline for any reason, recording goes to the internal drive instead until the NAS can be restored.

You just have to have confidence in your work. Put a pull line in there and you can come back at a later date and pull your cables. Would rather find a broken conduit with a pull string in there instead of damaged cabling or fiber. No sweating it either way. Good point here... in our case, the trench/pipe/bury part was already done when we got there for the cabling

500mA@24VAC isn't bad - works out to about 12VA. Two pairs would probably be lots. If you're running separate coax, you could even use three pairs for the power.

How did you format it? Through the DVR's menus, or plugged into a computer?

That is a really great link! Thanks, Nimrod!

^That's exactly how we've done it - trench, conduit, bury, pull wire. In the one case, it was a 50' mast with a concrete base, so the conduit stubbed up through the base, where we mounted a PVC box.

John, nothing in the OP's posts indicates they're TRYING to make money off the tests or the sites. It was others who suggested it could be done to drive advertising/click-throughs/traffic/etc. He's already stated, they've already done the testing and obtained their results. Whether they share the results or not, the time and money is already spent. If they want to share the results for free, they're not losing a cent. IF they can make a few bucks off of it with click-throughs or referrals or ad space, then good on them, but it doesn't sound like they're particularly concerned about that.

Look at options from the likes of QNAP, Synology, or Enhance Tech (among others; those are just the brands I've used). Most of these support multiple RAID levels, including RAID5 and RAID6, with or without hot spares. An 8-bay unit with 2TB drives would allow you to configure RAID6+spare would still give you 10TB available with lots of redundancy. Even with 1TB drives, you could use RAID6 or RAID5+spare and still come out to a hair under 6TB. If you're using PC-based DVRs (Windows or *nix), for connection, look into iSCSI (all the above manufacturers have units that support it) - it operates over the network, and targets created on the array appear to the system as local drives, rather than network drives. We've been using this on several sites now for a few years and found it very reliable.

Not exactly: they already stated, they've ALREADY done the testing: Not if you've already done the testing, or are doing it anyway for your own education, which is what the OP has done. Much like the participants in this thread: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=11322&start=0