Big Brother is Watching - Our Brand New Surveillance Server
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
1,683 words · ~8 min read
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so now that those days are finally behind us I feel like it's safe to
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reveal just how much of a complete joke
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the security was at the old Linus Media Group headquarters there was a barely
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functional video system remote access that barely worked and only on NX phone
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with no notifications not to mention the video feeds wouldn't have told us much
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if anything about a wouldbe robber and backing it up with some horrible
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residential grade alarm system on only some of the doors and none of the
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Windows these were cost-saving measures that made sense at the time we moved
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into the old house Studio but no longer
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do now that we've expanded to a team of nearly 10 people and are working on
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stuff like our upcoming Acer curved 34in
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freesync gaming monitor video that's that's coming drop a like if you're
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stoked to see that
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Corsair delivers real Mech or nothing with their new strafe mechanical
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keyboard featuring genuine german-made Cherry MX key switches click on this
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spot right here to learn more yeah the
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old Office security was a bad scene but not anymore this is our brand spanking
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new surveillance server from datacash doca who we chose to work with for a
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number of reasons there's all the stuff on their site they use only topnotch
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Hardware like this particular Trend net switch that they found is great for PoE
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cameras as well as the variety of different cameras that we've got outdoor
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ones you know uh fisheye ones regular ones all that kind of stuff they've got
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a three-year parts and labor warranty with on-site replacement like if
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something goes wrong they swap out a new camera on the spot they have a system to
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detect if one of your cameras fails and let you know before you have to find out
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and they're Canadian which maybe we can get like a motion trck little Canadian
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flag I can wave here but none of that is actually the reason that we ended up
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going with them in spite of having offers from multiple camera and
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surveillance companies data cach whether it's the owner Phil or any of the team
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members who we've worked with there are just our kind of people make sure you
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check them out at datacash doca Linus if you or anyone in your company needs
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video surveillance their communication was amazingly prompt and professional
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with questions answered thoroughly sometimes too thoroughly like long emails any time of day and if that's not
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enough on their site you'll find mention of optional CPU liquid cooling in their
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machines and hot swap systems for the
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surveillance drives these guys are bonafide enthusiasts which is probably
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why you'll notice that our surveillance server is ridiculously Enthusiast grade
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let's run through the specs so they use an iar USA case for most of their builds
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because while it only supports 15 drives that's less than the Norco RPC 4224 that
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we use all the time the sleds are completely toolless you just slide a
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bare drive in and Bam you've added more storage to your surveillance system more
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on the WD purple drives we're using in a bit poking around around inside the guts
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of our surveillance system are also hilariously Overkill like to the point
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where we could dramatically increase our camera count down the road without any
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slowdowns even when we're using you know uh more intensive features like real
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time dewarping of 360 Dee cameras we've
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got a core i74790 quad core processor installed on Aus z97 WS motherboard and
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while that's not full server grade ASUS's WS Hardware is built for heavy
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and continuous workloads and gets more validation for obscure Hardware like the
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raid card that we actually scavenged and uh threw in here this is from our old
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server our systems got 8 gigs of DDR3
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memory from Kingston it uses a 750 W power supply from Cooler Master although
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depending on how many drives and spinup power draw you might want to buffer on
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the side of a little bit more power supply capacity if you're actually
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installing all 15 drives we've just got nine in here and then finally on boot
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Drive Duty we've got not one but two of Intel's fast and reliable 7 30 series
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ssds running in raid one so this puppy would be pretty hard to take out with a
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drive failure which leads nicely back to the hard drives we're using I like Solid
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State Storage as much as anyone but for a workload like this the capacities not
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to mention the price make it completely unsuitable so we went back to good
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oldfashioned mechanical in the form of wd's purple series of surveillance
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drives unlike normal desktop drives purple drives aside from being
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specifically validated in a wide iety of security systems feature firmware
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upgrades like ATA streaming support and wd's proprietary allframe which in a
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nutshell optimizes them to handle the very unique workload of video
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surveillance that is multiple many
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highdef video streams continuously being written and then overwritten once the
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drives fill up 24 hours a day 7 days a
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week in a hot server room environment with vibration from other nearby
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equipment all of this without dropping frames in the recording something that
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was a major concern for us because like what's the point of a security system
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that runs great most of the time and then that one clear shot of someone's
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face there's a corrupted or missing frame or something like that which isn't
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to say that I would recommend spending this much on a system that only manages
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to handle recording videos without corruption and playing them back without
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revealing too much about this part of
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our new security setup because that would be stupid I can show you some of
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the cool stuff it can do so there's a mobile app for monitoring uh this works
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from anywhere and can actually even stream in high dep this feature you're
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looking at is called a missing object alarm potentially very useful in a
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workshop environment for an expensive piece of equipment that isn't supposed
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to move so it can actually trigger a notification to me or even trigger an
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audible alarm if that object isn't detected anymore this shows how the
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viewfinder can be customized to show some very different live view options so
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you can set up up tiles to see a normal view of a camera a zoomed in view of a
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camera with even multiple views especially useful with fisheye lenses by
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the way possible from the same camera depending on what kind of arrangement
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you want camera locations can also be overlaid on a map of the building so you
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can see indicators for where there are people moving about and check in on what
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they're doing cool here we see an intruder alarm and showing how to find a
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log of these alarms from within the interface oh and this one is some of the
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fancier cameras that you can hook up to this system actually support features
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like zoom and autofocus which is as simple as just using a scroll wheel on
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the mouse but this one this last one is
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the killer feature that gets me all excited like the missing object alarm it
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detects something that's moved but this one is capable of doing it after the
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fact so say for example someone enters the kitchen and moves someone else's
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dishes I can quickly scan through and see who it was yes there is a plan to
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make sure people only use their own dishes at the new office speaking of the
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new office this is where I would normally have like some kind of AD or
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something but not today well sort of an ad but it's for a Linus Media Group
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event on August 21st we will be doing the first ever in-person Linus Media
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Group garage sale and just general fan
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Meetup you guys will be able to come out to the new office which by that time
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we'll have the the address listed correctly on the Linus Medi group.com
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website so it's in uh kind of the Cloverdale area in Su and you guys will
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be able to come out there and meet the crew we're expecting it to run from
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around noon to sometime kind of early evening depending on when things wrap up
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we might even be doing like tours of the inside we're going to try and have some
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snacks and drinks and stuff there so uh come on down and check it out August
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21st 2015 if you guys are like watching this video sometime in the future I
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don't want a bunch of people showing up on August 21st the following year cuz
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that would be super sad so um yeah I
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think that's pretty much it guys though uh if you dislike this video I think you
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like this one or giving us a direct monthly contribution through the community Forum now that you're done
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doing all that stuff and you guys are looking for something else to watch you're going to want to watch Luke's
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video on the compensator the very finest
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machine the fastest we could build using off-the-shelf Parts it is quite the
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Showcase thanks again for watching I'll see you guys next time