Hardware for 8 4K cameras

[markwny]

I have a basic question regarding 24/7 x 14 day storage for 8 x 4K cameras. I see several places that talk about the use of mini PCs for Frigate, e.g. Beelink EQ13, Intel 125H, etc. I like the concept of using one of the devices for this purpose. However, I don't want to use such a device for the main storage of continuous video from all of these cameras over a period of 2 weeks or more. I wish to store the video on HDDs such as WD Purple drives. I know there is a way to connect such drive arrays to the mini PC via a USB port, but I've read that this not advised due to the connection is not reliable. So, what are my options? Or, perhaps better said, what does the community do for 24/7 storage?

[inkeep-ai-assistant[bot]]

For 8 x 4K cameras with 24/7 recording and 14-day retention, you have several storage options the community uses:

Common Approaches

Network Attached Storage (NAS): Many users mount a NAS to their Frigate instance for recording storage. (1) One user runs a Terramaster U4-423 with WD Purple drives in RAID1, noting it handles ~150mbps writing video for Frigate most of the day. (1)

Direct-attached storage on a more capable system: For commercial-scale installations (which 8 x 4K cameras approaches), you may want to consider hardware beyond mini PCs. (2) One user with 84 cameras uses a Dell PowerEdge T440 with 13 SAS drives in a ZFS array. (3)

Important Considerations for 4K Cameras

For commercial installations, verify the number of supported concurrent streams on your GPU—many consumer GPUs max out at ~20 concurrent camera streams. (2)

Video decoding burden grows exponentially with resolution and frame rate—a 4K stream at 30 FPS requires roughly 4x the processing power of a 1080p stream. (4) Hardware acceleration is critical for multiple high-resolution cameras. (4)

Storage Drive Selection

For continuous recording workloads, WD Purple drives with 256MB cache (model WD43PURZ) are recommended over the older 64MB cache versions. (1) Consumer SSDs may not be ideal for constant write-heavy workloads—datacenter SSDs or surveillance-rated HDDs are better suited. (1)

Storage Sizing

You can use a bandwidth calculator to estimate storage needs for your specific bitrates and retention period. (5)

The mini PCs recommended in the docs work well for processing, but for your storage requirements, connecting to a NAS over your network or using a system with internal drive bays would be more reliable than USB-attached storage.

📚 Sources:

1. Hardware recommendations
2. Planning a New Installation
3. Improve UI performance for systems with large number of cameras
4. High CPU Usage
5. Storage size recommendation?

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