ZoneMinder system requirements?

truckerDave

truckerDave

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Hello.

I recently purchased a Reolink 4 POE camera video surveillance system for the house. And, in my usual fashion, I did so before researching the "correct" questions.

The system "works". But I can't get the sensitivity for motion/person/automobile detection dialed in. Bump it up a hair and my phone gets bombarded with false alerts. Bump it down a bit and you can go do jumping Jack's in front of it without any notifications at all. And don't even get me started on how it is if it starts snowing!

So, I'm looking at setting up my own NVR using ZoneMinder. Which leads me to Step #2: Deciding on a PC (Step #1 being the choice of software).

I've been all over the web for the last few days looking for Minimum System Requirements for ZM. Everyone seems to tiptoe around the subject. I guess because there is so many different cameras and even more variants in user needs.

I have no intention of going "bare minimum". But if anyone can recommend the "bare minimum", it would give me a good bar to jump over.

Would my ole Compaq Presario from 1996 work? :D
 


vs2-free-users said:
In my experience, zoneminder needs a good cpu and a fast hard disk. It needs a lot of resources for encoding. This should not be ignored.
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I could be wrong, but I think my cameras do the encoding themselves. A high definition and a low definition stream. But, again, I could be mistaken.
 
zoneminder is a horrible hog of resource and the support is just bad. I use it but installed it on a fedora 30 because anything after v1.34.1 has many issues. Not the least of which is onvif not working right and massive memory leaks. I would suggest finding something other than zoneminder. I dealt with them for years and can tell you they have just been getting worse.

My personal experience turned out to be glitches on their end but they insisted on wanting to charge me to fix their own errors. That is why I moved away from them.

They have a great system and very well thought out but the implementation has been horrid. Motion is a competition that I think works better with much less resource.

Even with the Fedora 30 ZM V1.34 still have to run a 16 core gaming system with 32 gig RAM and 2TB SSD.

AVOID ZONEMINDER if you can. If not then try an old version and you will find it works much better. Also for the motion detect I would use strips. Divide the screen area you want detection and make 4 to 8 small strips for detection. However they calculate motion relies on a percentage of the area changing, smaller area more sensitive. So make multiple small areas rather than one large.
 
APTI said:
AVOID ZONEMINDER if you can
Click to expand...
Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that ZM was the best of Linux programs. Not positive Motion works with my cameras. But I will certainly look in to it. I really appreciate the feedback.
 
truckerDave said:
Thanks for the info. I was under the impression that ZM was the best of Linux programs. Not positive Motion works with my cameras. But I will certainly look in to it. I really appreciate the feedback.
Click to expand...
zoneminder was great but last couple years it has gone seriously downhill. I am hoping it is great again.
 
APTI said:
Motion is a competition that I think works better with much less resource
Click to expand...
That may be the case. But why in the world would they choose the name Motion? Searching for "Motion" and "RLC-520A" gets one every retailer link under the sun. Why? Because it does motion detecting. Add "Linux". Almost nothing. Search youtube for "motion". Lots of videos about all sorts of stuff. But maybe 2 or 3 about the surveillance program.
 
truckerDave said:
ZoneMinder
Click to expand...
this from their websire
For 1-4 cameras, you can use a core2duo or better CPU.

10 cameras, you should have low end server CPUs (i.e. avoid i3,i5 etc)(Xeon is an intel server CPU. AMD has a variety of server CPUs that work well).

10-50 cameras you want a powerful server CPU, but still don't need to break the bank. Old server hardware can be got for <$1000, even $600 if you are lucky.

Above that you might just want to pay the developer's for advice to get them to fine tune a system. But you can also give a try at it yourself if you wish.

Keep in mind that depending on how you configure ZM can make or break your systems. Trying to run 4 4K cameras with mocord on a core 2 duo will fail, but it might handle 4 1080p streams with record on the hi res stream and modect on the low res stream

NOTE the core 2 duo is an intell 64 bit CPU your laptop is proberbly anP4 32 bit
 
Brickwizard said:
your laptop is proberbly anP4 32 bit
Click to expand...
Probably worse. No idea what's in my old laptop. It was new to the market in 2005 :oops: and hasn't been powered up in 7 or 8 years.

Probably safe to say most newer PCs can handle the 4 cameras I have (don't anticipate a need for more any time soon). But, from my reading, all the ram I can throw at it would be a plus. And a good SATA hard drive. Seems a lot of folks go with the WD Purple drives. A 2T would most likely be plenty for my needs.

For the sake of saving a few dollars, I am contemplating purchasing a used PC off the marketplace. Thus my reason for trying to understand the minimum requirements. I've seen a few of the slower i7 windblows 10 machines going for under $100 locally.
 
you may do better with a second hand tower with xenon cpu's [and cheaper]
 
Brickwizard said:
you may do better with a second hand tower with xenon cpu's [and cheaper]
Click to expand...
None anywhere near me at the moment. There are some on ebay. Saw one for around $90. Not sure who would pay an additional $190 for shipping though. Ebay should crack down on that sort of thing.

Nope. Not going to do it. Just going to leave the soap box under the bed and walk away.
 
truckerDave said:
Hello.

I recently purchased a Reolink 4 POE camera video surveillance system for the house. And, in my usual fashion, I did so before researching the "correct" questions.

The system "works". But I can't get the sensitivity for motion/person/automobile detection dialed in. Bump it up a hair and my phone gets bombarded with false alerts. Bump it down a bit and you can go do jumping Jack's in front of it without any notifications at all. And don't even get me started on how it is if it starts snowing!

So, I'm looking at setting up my own NVR using ZoneMinder. Which leads me to Step #2: Deciding on a PC (Step #1 being the choice of software).

I've been all over the web for the last few days looking for Minimum System Requirements for ZM. Everyone seems to tiptoe around the subject. I guess because there is so many different cameras and even more variants in user needs.

I have no intention of going "bare minimum". But if anyone can recommend the "bare minimum", it would give me a good bar to jump over.

Would my ole Compaq Presario from 1996 work? :D
Click to expand...
I thought you might want some further info not just for zoneminder but ANY system you want to put in with cameras.

IP cameras use a huge amount of bandwidth. DO NOT USE WIRELESS for any security camera. 3 or 4 cameras at 1080 will overwhelm the wifi.
let me explain a little. The further from the access point you get the slower the wifi. This will adversely affect cameras. Wifi is not the most stable platform and security needs to be stable. I won't even go into somebody making an RF jammer and shutting down the cameras. Wifi is a single channel that is shared and your cameras will kill your wifi.

The best way is to give each camera a static IP along with the computer controlling them. Put them all on their own private physical network using its own Ethernet cable and network switch/hub. This will give you stability, a constant speed, and the peace of mind that the RF signal can't be jammed. Keeping all of these heavy traffic items on their own physical network will keep the network traffic from flowing over into the network you are using for internet and other things. You can run a single line between the hub and your regular router to give you access to the network including remotely. We call this "traffic shaping" and if you do not pay attention to this you will end up with an unusable system. Not just the cameras but the extra traffic going through your router will slow everything down. Keeping the cameras and control computer on a separate dedicated network will prevent this.
 
APTI said:
The best way is to give each camera a static IP along with the computer controlling them. Put them all on their own private physical network using its own Ethernet cable and network switch/hub. This will give you stability, a constant speed, and the peace of mind that the RF signal can't be jammed. Keeping all of these heavy traffic items on their own physical network will keep the network traffic from flowing over into the network you are using for internet and other things. You can run a single line between the hub and your regular router to give you access to the network including remotely. We call this "traffic shaping" and if you do not pay attention to this you will end up with an unusable system. Not just the cameras but the extra traffic going through your router will slow everything down. Keeping the cameras and control computer on a separate dedicated network will prevent this.
Click to expand...
This is, for the most part, the way I was envisioning my setup. The "separate static IP for each camera" is now a new addition to the plan. The system I bought has no wifi cameras and I have no intention of ever buying one for the security reasons you stated.
 
I think I am going to purchase a used Dell Precision that has a Xeon E5-2690 (8 core) with 32 GB ram. The Dell site states it can handle up to 64GB of DDR3. It currently has a 1T SSD. And, from the specs, it appears it won't be a problem adding a Purple.

While not perfect, it should handle the 4 cameras well enough (only really NEED 2). And, if it doesn't, I have another use for it already in mind.
 
truckerDave said:
Xeon E5-2690
Click to expand...
That was one bloody expensive CPU for its day [made 2013-2017] over 2 grand it has 8 core each with 2 threads [16 processing lanes] the cpu can handle up to 384 gb ram but this is motherboard dependent, I think it may be able to handle Up to 128GB 1600MHz or 1333MHz ECC RDIMM memory, AND NOTE it is ECC Ram again dependent on motherboard spec.
 
Brickwizard said:
That was one bloody expensive CPU for its day [made 2013-2017] over 2 grand it has 8 core each with 2 threads [16 processing lanes] the cpu can handle up to 384 gb ram but this is motherboard dependent, I think it may be able to handle Up to 128GB 1600MHz or 1333MHz ECC RDIMM memory, AND NOTE it is ECC Ram again dependent on motherboard spec.
Click to expand...
I think the RAM limitations of this box (just ordered it) is indeed the motherboard. It's a Mid-Tower desktop PC. So, not a lot of real estate inside there.

I did order it from eBay. So, I am hoping the seller is accurate on the processor specs.

The spec sheet PDF is here, if anyone is interested.
 
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APTI said:
The best way is to give each camera a static IP along with the computer controlling them. Put them all on their own private physical network using its own Ethernet cable and network switch/hub.
Click to expand...
Any thoughts on a good lower budget POE switch. I have a T-Link (not POE) that I use in my network that seems to do it's job well enough. But I haven't yet done any research on POE switches. I did, however, run across a page telling how to turn the Reolink NVR into a POE switch. I'm not going to do that, though. I'll probably offer it up for sale and recoup some of my funds.
 
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