08-09-2024, 06:14 PM
I have a challenge on my hands. It's a project for my friend Jim. My friend is a bit of a cheapskate ( we call him "frugal", when he's in the room ).
Jim has a cottage on an island on the British Columbia coast. He is off grid but does have a pretty decent sized solar panel array and storage batteries. So power isn't a big issue, but can't be ignored. Jim "borrows" internet access from a neighbour via Wifi.
The project is to create a very simple, low power, low cost surveillance system just to check to see who is coming up the road onto his property and be able to view the images when he is back home here in Vancouver. A single camera is going to be sufficient. It will capture based on motion activation only so there is no continuous stream.
My background : I have a Synology and a QNAP NAS and am quite familiar with their use. I'm also reasonably familiar with both Tailscale VPN and Syncthing. I have 5 Reolink POE cameras set up around my home which FTP's their jpg's and mp4's to my old QNAP NAS. I also view them via Home Assistant which I set up as a virtual machine. I have a GL.iNet MT3000 travel router and understand its interface well. This will all be important as you will see below.
The plan that I have in my mind is to have a single Reolink POE camera mounted outside the cottage to watch the road. The camera and the NAS will then be connected via ethernet cables to a little 4 port D-Link POE switch in the cottage. The switch will connect to a GL.iNet MT3000 travel router. The NAS must be able to run Tailscale so that I can login from my home. The NAS must also be able to run Syncthing to sync the jpg and possibly the mp4 files to another NAS here in Vancouver.
The Challenge : which NAS / device should I use to collect and sync the jpg and mp4 files from the camera ? Even a 2 bay QNAP or Synology would likely be to expensive. If I could find one cheap enough, I'd install a single 1 Tb SSD as they are cheap and use little power. I'm not sure how much power the fans use though. I've thought about a Raspberry Pi 5 but I'm not too sure than I want that learning curve. The Pi can be loaded with its own OS or with Ubuntu. Using Ubuntu may make the installation of Tailscale and Syncthing more straight forward. Maybe a Zima device. I thought about an old laptop but I don't want Windows constantly clogging the Wifi with housekeeping crap. I would be happy to use an SD card / micro-SD card for storage. Back home, I can use Syncthing to delete files from the sync'd folder at home which will sync the deletion with the SD card on the cottage SD thereby freeing up space.
I have this well sorted out in my own mind but am not sure if I am clear in my descriptions.
I'd love to hear any thoughts on the NAS or the configuration in general.
Jim has a cottage on an island on the British Columbia coast. He is off grid but does have a pretty decent sized solar panel array and storage batteries. So power isn't a big issue, but can't be ignored. Jim "borrows" internet access from a neighbour via Wifi.
The project is to create a very simple, low power, low cost surveillance system just to check to see who is coming up the road onto his property and be able to view the images when he is back home here in Vancouver. A single camera is going to be sufficient. It will capture based on motion activation only so there is no continuous stream.
My background : I have a Synology and a QNAP NAS and am quite familiar with their use. I'm also reasonably familiar with both Tailscale VPN and Syncthing. I have 5 Reolink POE cameras set up around my home which FTP's their jpg's and mp4's to my old QNAP NAS. I also view them via Home Assistant which I set up as a virtual machine. I have a GL.iNet MT3000 travel router and understand its interface well. This will all be important as you will see below.
The plan that I have in my mind is to have a single Reolink POE camera mounted outside the cottage to watch the road. The camera and the NAS will then be connected via ethernet cables to a little 4 port D-Link POE switch in the cottage. The switch will connect to a GL.iNet MT3000 travel router. The NAS must be able to run Tailscale so that I can login from my home. The NAS must also be able to run Syncthing to sync the jpg and possibly the mp4 files to another NAS here in Vancouver.
The Challenge : which NAS / device should I use to collect and sync the jpg and mp4 files from the camera ? Even a 2 bay QNAP or Synology would likely be to expensive. If I could find one cheap enough, I'd install a single 1 Tb SSD as they are cheap and use little power. I'm not sure how much power the fans use though. I've thought about a Raspberry Pi 5 but I'm not too sure than I want that learning curve. The Pi can be loaded with its own OS or with Ubuntu. Using Ubuntu may make the installation of Tailscale and Syncthing more straight forward. Maybe a Zima device. I thought about an old laptop but I don't want Windows constantly clogging the Wifi with housekeeping crap. I would be happy to use an SD card / micro-SD card for storage. Back home, I can use Syncthing to delete files from the sync'd folder at home which will sync the deletion with the SD card on the cottage SD thereby freeing up space.
I have this well sorted out in my own mind but am not sure if I am clear in my descriptions.
I'd love to hear any thoughts on the NAS or the configuration in general.
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