Intellex / American Dynamics Backups ?

[nmos 0]

First let me say that I'm not a cctv expert, I'm a computer/networking guy but AD doesn't really have a solution to my customers problem and noone locally has experience with these units so I'm it.

 

My customer has a pair of 2.5 series Intellex LTs with 16 inputs and an extended storage module for a total of 7 drives and 1TB of storage. One of his major requirements for this system was to have 1 year of video however it doesn't look like this system is ever going to be reliable enough for that. To make matters worse, when AD comes out to fix anything they either replace the main unit or the extended storage module taking roughly half his data with them rather than finding and replacing the failed component. I've set up a backup system as a stop-gap however that opens up a whole new can of worms. For example installing any software including backup software is potentially an issue for his service contract. The last time he had a failure (the system was locking up every few days) the service folks said "don't restore the backup because it might bring the problem back". They had, of course wiped his data again. The propriatary format they use makes it difficult/impossible to view without putting it back into the machine so the backup is effectively worthless. I don't see this problem ever getting better since as those 7 hard drives start to age he's going to see even more failures.

 

So where do I go from here? I'd LOVE to leave this thing to the experts but they don't want any part of any backup solution and don't really seem to care at all about his data. For the sort of money he's spending on his service contract I could just about get a used unit or two from Ebay to use for spare parts and to view the backups with. Is this a sane approach? Other ideas?

[eascctv 0]

First as always make sure your software is up to date. All upgrades for this unit up to 2.5.9 are free on americandynamics.net. versions previous to this are buggy. Also remember you are running on win98 that is working 24/7 with no reboots. The intelex database is very fragile (as are most video databases of this size) loss of power without a UPS is almost sure to corrupt the database and when the unit returns to that point it can and sometimes does STOP which forces a reset. They also have a poor power supply, a good upgrade would not cost much but will help. The hardrives they use are also somewhat of a problem (they tend to fail, alot). This of course will corrupt the database as well. even if you replace just that drive intellex does not like it. That gets us to the service dept. Depends on where you live but you could get great service or a part swapper. Most techs do not know how to actually work on these units and so they replace them. You can service this unit yourself with very little knowledge but techs are rarely trained and asked to get the job done in an hour or less. If you choose to service it yourself you will be happier and wealthier. Intellex is only a PC with a video capture card made by AD. If you want more info on this option just ask.

 

Now to answer your question. No there is not a good way to back up the database. And the bigger the database the more likely it is to be corrupted.

 

So you have a choice. Stay with Intellex and try to solve the corruption problems or choose a system that allows you to remove and add drives at will. Then you can save video by storing drives. rather than a large database.

 

The ESM is also a part of the problem. Way too hot. This causes problems with the drives.

 

I am curious - why 1 year?

[Securitymaster 0]

You can also do this.

 

Get a NAS storage device that's big enough to handle the database.

 

Working with AD I learned that is better to just pay the extra cash and get either a DVMS or a Premier unit, the LT'S tend to have a lot of issues.

 

Tell your client to get rid of the service contract, since it's looking like it's costing him too much for what he is getting.

[nmos 0]

eascctv:

 

Thanks for the replay. If you have a suggestion for a system better suited for storing data long term I'm all ears. I don't think I'm ever going to get a win98 system with 7 disks to be rock solid for a year or more at a stretch so my choices are either replace the system or find a way of detecting and dealing with occasional minor corruption short of deleting everything.

 

My impression from nosing around in the software is that it keeps a seperate index on each disk and merges them together when the capture software starts. Does that sound right? I also noticed that in the disk management section you can import, repair, and remove individual disks. What I didn't see is any way to verify the integrety of the database as a whole. I was once able to dump one disk worth of data from the backups to an external firewire disk and get it to play on a replacement unit that had been sent which suggests that I should be able to treat each disk seperately when it comes to backup/restore/replacement. Also, I was told that you cannot take data from one Intellex unit and import it to another one but my previous experiment with the firewire disk suggests that it might be possible. Any thoughts?

 

What I'm considering doing is as follows:

 

1. Running some SMART monitoring software to detect disk problems before they fail (I know that isn't 100% reliable but it's better than nothing) .

 

2. Every week, stop the capture process and take a snapshot to a NAS device and then restart the capture.

 

I think this way I can always get back to a known good state or at worst load the backup onto a spare Intellex box for viewing. Does this sound sane? I think the piece I'm really missing is some way of verifying for certain that the db and data are in a consistant state.

 

Why 1 year? This customer has a largly cash business and his employees have some leeway in setting prices on a case by case basis so he is mainly concerned about employee theft. Unfortunately it can take a month or more for certain types of problems to show up in the books. Sometimes it's not until inventory time that a problem is obvious. Also, he sells firearms and likes to be able to show ATF the pictures of some guy who might have bought a gun 6 months ago.