What is the recommended specs for a computer that needs to be on 24/7 for recording purposes. eg IP Cameras?

Answer 1

any computer will do that.. you don't need a high spec system just big hdd at 7200 revs, 1min of video = 10 meg disk space if your going for a smaller hdd then get motion cameras that way it don't take up to much space, that is if your saving the videos clips if you have no movement you don't get video clips but you can still see whats on the cameras from any where in the world

Answer 2

If the computer will be put to other uses while it's recording, you'll need to have plenty of RAM. 512 MB would be the bare minimum if you are running Windows XP. Preferably you should have 1 GB or more of RAM.

As far as your Hard drive goes, you should have one drive that will hold the OS and all your programs and get a second larger drive to hold the video. If you will be saving relatively high quality video you'll want a hard drive that has a high data rate. If you are buying a new computer make sure it supports SATA at the least because it transfers faster than IDE hard drives, but that is mostly standard now anyways.

If you need to save the video make sure that you back up your data often, in which case you'll want to make sure you have a DVD-RW drive.

Everything else, such as your processor won't effect the performance of a computer meant for recording and storage, but it is always best to just set a budget and buy the best that you can get within that budget.