How to Check if Camera Data Rate is too High Using Storage Manager

How to Check if Camera Data Rate is too High Using Storage Manager

This article will help verify if the data rate of the attached cameras is too high for the VidIO module drive set installed in your DVR Express CORE 2 recorder.

Before starting make sure your DVR is set up properly, the attached cameras are configured in the mode they will be used in, and a drive set is installed and created in the DVR. It is recommended to remove all recordings from the drive set to get an accurate benchmark.

First, navigate to the Storage Manager. If you've installed the Core software in the default location, you can find the storage manager here: 

                  C:\Program Files\IO Industries\DVR Express\Core\Bin\core_storage_manager.exe

Alternatively, this can be accessed in CoreView:

Storage Manager tab in CoreView
Once in the Storage Manager, select "Test drive set performance" to enter the drive benchmark tool.

How to access the benchmark tool from the Storage Manager
The graph shows drive write speed over the capacity of the drive. The green line represents the data rate of the connected cameras and this value can be found at the bottom of the screen beside the green box. 

Select the button with the red circle icon to start a benchmark. You will now see red and blue lines representing the minimum and maximum write speeds of the drives. Let the benchmark run for a few seconds and look at the "Statistics" values at the bottom of the screen. 


The camera speed higher than the minimum drive write speed

The red 'X' icon beside the camera speed denotes that your camera speed is too high for the drive configuration. Either the drive configuration must be changed or the camera settings must be changed to slow the data rate. You might also see a yellow '!' icon which denotes that your camera speed is approaching the minimum write speed of the drives and still leaves a chance of impartial frames being recorded. Change your configuration until the camera write speed is lower than the minimum drive write speed, and the icon beside the camera speed value is a green check mark. 

Changes to your configuration may include lowering camera framerate, choosing an ROI for the camera, adding more drives, choosing a different RAID level for your drive set, etc. 
Lowering the camera's frame rate reduced the data rate to below the minimum write speed
For more detailed information on the write speeds and configurations of VidIO module SSDs refer to the user manual of your DVR. 

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