Exploring some ideas

Self-Hosted & Services Unraid
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I want to plan a build (unraid server) at work that would replace the existing video surveillance system which is long in the tooth. It’s a Nuvico EVL-800 if that means anything to anyone. The cameras are all coax. What I am wondering is if I could get a capture card and reuse the existing coax cameras or is that more trouble than it’s worth. Even cooler would be if I could keep the existing coax and still have the option to add wireless cameras such as outside my shop.

In addition to surveillance I would also use it for a NAS and run a few dockers like syncthing, maybe Plex meant to be a mirror of the plex at my house. So I guess basically I would be interested if anyone can assist me in planning out the hardware. Something like Blue-Iris I guess is what the cool kids are using these days…I assume in a docker?

Storage doesn’t have to be huge. I would rather design for low power as possible while still getting the job done.

Budget is cheap as possible…I would imagine much would depend on the capture card cost and how many hard drives I would get. I’m thinking $500 right now but that could change. Currently I’m using four coax cameras.

EDIT: I am going to look into ZoneMinder as well. Looks like it has a ca for UNRAID…might be a workable solution.

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Really, you should be looking at 3 different devices for the different tasks of: DVR, NAS, Plex. Your budget looks doable, although I have to admit at first glance I thought no way!

Run plex on a dedicated HP290(they have been going on sale for ~$100)

If you have any old computers laying around, chances are you can get a nas running unraid set-up for file storage, Or check out some of the sample NK4 Builds as low as ~$175

Blue iris is the way to go for cams, but this might take up your whole budget depending on how many cameras and megapixels you want to add.If you’re only running 4 coax cameras, another HP290 might be able to handle that, but idk how much you would be able to add to it, you could get a faster, but older processor to give yourself some room to grow for ~$200 like this.

tldr:
NK4 for NAS ~$175 (Driveless)
HP290 for Plex ~$100
HP290 for BlueIris (Confirm usage/megapixels!) ~$100
or
Older I7 w/ quicksync for room to grow with blue iris ~$200-300

Note I didn’t include any drives for the NK4, but if you hang around in the discord on here you should be able to pick up some cheap dense disks pretty quickly.

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