Hi everyone. Kind of a newbie here. I have been running TrueNas for sometime now without any issues. Only app I have now is Nextcloud. I want to install Frigate and hookup my cameras to that. Is there a tutorial or best practice guide available?
Also, I have a separate disk available apart from what is used for Scale. I would like to store the CCTV recordings in this disk. I added it to the NAS and currently it shows up as “Unused Disk 1”
Another question I have is, can Coral in M2 form work with Frigate in TrueNas? I see the option to use the USB version, but can I use the M2 one?
Thanks a tonne.
Offhand, I recall someone stating that the M.2 wasn’t supported without running some shell commands to add drivers which may break with future updates. That is, yes*, but really no and that the USB dongle was preferred.
Disclosure: I’m not running Frigate or Coral, and only extensively looked into the possibility before looking at the cost of a PoE switch and the cost of runs to do it properly i.e. not wirelessly, which can, by some accounts, be jammed by any neighborhood kid with a flipper zero and some attachments.
By your wording it sounds like you want a dedicated pool just for CCTV storage to prevent premature wear on your personal storage drive and, also by your wording you went RAIDz1. Did you get an enterprise drive that is rated for continuous use? The usual warnings about checking that it’s a CMR, not a SMR drive apply but also its write rating if it’s slated for constant use without redundancy- not necessarily advised, even if you have a replication task set to back it up offsite daily (potentially at a NAS in a family member’s house in another state) something you haven’t mentioned but could be worthwhile to look into.
If that’s all good just proceed to create a new pool with a suitable name e.g. “CCTVTank” or “Footage”, point it to your drive, confirm that you really and truly want RAIDz1 without redundency, setup the app and configuration, and possibly setup Home Assistant to send alerts to your phone if you want.
Let me know how it goes. I looked into it and held off due to pricing on weather-resistant hardline exterior cameras and a PoE switch with capacity for a full setup, but may get back to it if the crime rate goes up or prices come down.
For others reading, if you want to play around with a hardwired connection a PoE injector can be a more affordable option for those who only need/ can afford a single good camera. Home Assistant capable smart doorbells exist and can save you money compared to a cloud-hosted subscription service like Nest in less time than you think even if non-subsidized cameras cost more than one would think looking at the cost of subscription service hardware installs. (It should be noted that there are some unofficial workarounds to repurpose said hardware for use in Frigate talked about on Servethehome, but I don’t have any experience with doing such.)
Best of luck on your project!
Thank you! I will go for the USB dongle itself, in that case. I have ports available in my PoE switch and the camera’s are currently wired connecting to an NVR. My plan is the connect them to the PoE switch, so that Frigate can pick it up.
The disks I have are three WD Red Plus - 4TB - WD40EFPX. Two of them, I have in mirror mode for my NAS data storage. Third is currently not used and that is what I want to use for Frigate (no redundancy). Yes, I have HA setup to send alerts as my next step - after I can get Frigate all setup. My current NVR just records, no alerts if someone comes by. Hence I am into this project now.
I agree on the camera pricing. For now, I am planning use the existing camera’s - not the best quality or anything and is pretty old. But I can get the technology going and experiment with it.
Any tutorial or documentation available on best configuration settings and also the basic - how do I connect the camera (connected to the POE switch) to Frigate in my NAS?
Thanks!
I checked and there is an active feature request to include the M.2 coral TPU drivers without people needing to fiddle with manually adding them in Shell and all the “fun” that can entail, but it doesn’t appear to be implemented as of 3 months ago.
The WD Red Plus drive should probably be fine, especially with email alerts enabled that can let you know of issues before the drive actually fails (if all goes well). I’ve heard an old rule of thumb for constant use with decent cooling is 5 years, but apparently it really depends and you’d need to talk to someone with more experience for a better estimate. I do know one person who claimed to be pushing 9 years on well cooled, semi-active enterprise drives.
I googled some guides and it seems like your best bet is finding a tutorial that mentions your specific vendor as apparently some brands can be finicky connecting. There was a guy who had an issue with the GPU passthrough, and also some configuration hiccups I read about.
In short, the official guide will almost certainly require some supplemental Googling. If that doesn’t work odds are someone on the Forum can help.
Best of luck with your project and feel free to post a follow-up with how things worked out!
