Hi all, I’ve done enough cabling in my career to choke a herd of elephants, in new construction and in remodel, and have a pretty good idea what I’m doing, but I am a bit rusty and am looking for a sounding board.
My friend is buying a house, and one of the early projects will be adding some Unifi cameras, Unifi WAPs, and a doorbell camera. i have the cameras, WAPs, and the Cloud Key+ v2 already, so that makes a lot of the decisions easier. I don’t want to make this thing complicated, it needs to be a ‘set-and-forget’ thing, but I’m wanting to make a solid solution.
Overview:
- Mount up to 8 cameras
- Mount 1 doorbell camera
- Mount 2 WAPs
- Bring the Cat6 cables to the MDF
- Place the UCK in the MDF
- Place the cable modem in the MDF
The MDF is not going to be a huge affair, more of a small wiring closet, and very unlikely to ever need anything as big as a rack server. I do think I’ll be having these elements:
So, there you have my overview. I’m open to ideas and thoughts and input, like I said this is a brainstorming session.
15 Spice ups
If you’re using a standard sized rack, might I suggest the TrippLite/Eaton rackmount power strip? That’ll mount wherever in the rack, keeping cords up and out of the way, plus a cover over the power switch to prevent accidents!
What’re you planning for storage or are the cameras only using on-board storage? Cloud account? How much on-board do the cameras have for network outage situations? If they’re PoE, and the lights go out, do the cams have a backup power source?
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We have a host of 6U wallmount racks that could work. Eaton Tripp Lite Server Racks & Cabinets | Eaton
And some patch panels, too: Copper Patch Panels | Eaton
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Thank you, Jay, for your ideas. This is why I’m here, to brainstorm.
I was initially going to use a PDU of some sort, but as I was working through the list I realized that the devices that need power are only a cable modem and a switch, so I am intending to plug directly into the UPS.
The UCK has a 1TB disk, which ought to handle the camera storage needs. If I find that it is not enough I can either swap in a larger disk, or at that point I’d have to look into alternative options.
The UPS will power the switch and the cable modem, and all the Ubiquiti devices are POE, so not only will all the tech stay alive, the internet connection will also remain up.
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Sounds like you’ve got just about everything covered!
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Thanks @mike-eaton for always being available to make your suggestions.
I had looked at the Tripp Lite cabinets. I used some of the SRW6U at a previous job for IDFs mounted in the rafters of our warehouse, really liked them. I used the SRWO8U22 frames at a subsequent job in secured IDF closets and they were really nice to work with. Alas, the Startech model I linked is about half the cost of the SWRO and a third of the cost of the SRW, so in this case it is all about the bottom line.
The Tripp Lite 16 port 1U keystone panel however, looks like a win!
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What speed is their internet. Might want to look at a 2.5 Gig or Multi Gig switch depending on who they have and what they may get in the future. I say this because mine just got bumped to 2Gig so I’m in the market for an 2.5 Gig switch.
7 Spice ups
bucko
(bucko)
9
don’t forget about surge protection of outside devices - outside cameras and door bell need to have surge/lightning protection on the outside of the house, then, behind the protection, you lay save cable to your rack. Yes, protection needs to be grounded (thicker cable). You really don’t want lightning to hit into your outside device and fry your whole cabinet and even EMP from indirect hit is enough to do it.
Second most important thing is you don’t buy 6U cabinet, as you will hit yourself into your head in few months. Sure, you might have 1 patch panel today, but what will happen in few moths, when you’ll need to add few ports… Why not have a PDU to have easy access to all sockets in front, on what shelf will you put your PDU, where will you put your router, maybe in few years you’ll need something additional in there and you won’t have any room for expansion… Pay few bucks more and get few additional Us.
Third thing to consider is category of the cable - I don’t know why people still buy CAT6, as, at least where I’m from, shielded or foiled CAT6A is cheaper than CAT6 and at least with 6A you have more freedom for bandwidth.
As for UPS, heat destroys batteries, so you should think about temperature in the rack.
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Where I am, Shielded CAT6A is twice the price of CAT6. That is why CAT6 is mainly used in residential.
5 Spice ups
kwelch007
(kwelch007)
11
Punchdown panel instead of patch panel just to keep it interesting? 
4 Spice ups
Something to consider about the UCK. If the 1TB disk is a spinning HD, seriously consider upgrading to an SSD as the HDD will die - sooner rather than later. We have had a few do that and the new models come with an SSD (at least here in Australia).
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LuisC
( LuisC)
13
In an environmentally controlled location, HDD’s do better with the constants high writes from video surveillance than SSD. The SSD’s generally wear out quicker for this type of use, along with the much higher cost per byte of storage. Where SSD’s tend to do better is harsh environments with high temps and vibration.
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Are you planning on running conduit for the wiring? Or just using the bare ethernet cable behind the walls?
Conduit does add additional cost and time, but makes up for it if you need to replace a run or upgrade to a higher rated cable or fiber in the future.
4 Spice ups
I would consider something bigger than 650va. The first and last TrippLite I purchased has a REALLY ANNOYING issue: If it runs the battery completely dead during a blackout, it will NOT power back on after you get power back, so you have to manually power the UPS back on before your network will come up. Maybe this model is different, but I’m about to take our TrippLite out of service because of that.
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This is an existing house, I’ll be choosing between crawl space and attic crawls depending on the exact location of individual cameras.
This is a fabulous idea, and I thnk I’ll see if I can work that in. At least once I get to the walls themselves anyway. The idea of having a clear path through a wall that should be insulated is very appealing!
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TimJjr
(TimJr)
17
The Green Grounding cable/wire, for the rack and other components.
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Grounding is definitely a good idea, I’ll take that into account
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molan
(molan)
19
This hasn’t been my experience. I have been using SSD in NVRs for year now without any failures
Spinning disks fail all the time.
When you do the math on most modern SSD drives for the data written and SSD will last for years. into the next decade, in most cases
Take this 2TB WD Blue as an example
TBW 500TB.
So if the NVR writes the entire disk every 2 weeks (most don’t) That is 4TB a month written. That mean you are writing 48 TB per year. 500TBW \ 48TB = 10 years before the SSD burns out from write fatigue. Its also written sequentially so the SSD doesn’t suffer write fatigue in a specific sector its nicely spread across the disk for wear leveling.
SSD works great in NVR use cases. Its also very nice when you need to play back and search for video to not have to wait for a slow spinning disk.
2 Spice ups
jaydenf8
(jaydenf8)
20
Are you considering doing data drops into the rooms as well? Or is it set up for that already?
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