Free tool · runs in your browser

Video Storage Calculator

Enter how many videos you're planning to keep, their average duration, and your typical bitrate — the calculator returns the library's total size in MB, GB, and TB and shows how it fits onto common cloud and drive tiers.

Average duration per video

Total in MB

6144

Total in GB

6.00

Total in TB

0.006

Compare to common storage tiers

  • Over limit.iCloud free tier 5 GB120% of capacity
  • Fits.Google Drive free tier 15 GB40% of capacity
  • Fits.Google Drive 100 GB plan 100 GB6% of capacity
  • Fits.1 TB SSD 1 TB1% of capacity
  • Fits.5 TB external drive 5 TB0% of capacity
  • Fits.18 TB NAS HDD 18 TB0% of capacity

Estimate covers delivery codecs (H.264 / HEVC / AV1) at the combined bitrate of 8.192 Mbps you entered. Master files in ProRes or DNxHR run 5–10× larger; budget separately for those.

How to use this tool

  1. 01

    Enter your library size

    Total video count + average duration.

  2. 02

    Enter your typical bitrate

    From your export settings.

  3. 03

    Plan storage

    Compare to common drive sizes and pick your strategy.

Why this matters

Storage planning is the most boring and most expensive part of a video workflow, but running out of space mid-shoot, mid-render, or mid-archive kills momentum at the worst possible moment — knowing in advance whether a year of weekly 4K uploads needs 200 GB or 2 TB of working storage changes which drive you buy, which NAS bay you reserve, and whether a cloud-only strategy is even viable. Most creators also underestimate by 2–3× because they forget the master files, B-roll, retakes, and project files behind every published clip; running this calc once for delivery and once for masters surfaces the real number.

This tool stays narrow on purpose — video count, average duration, and a combined video plus audio bitrate — and compares against six concrete tiers (iCloud free, Google Drive free / 100 GB, 1 TB SSD, 5 TB external, 18 TB NAS) so the decision between cloud and local storage is grounded in capacity rather than vibes. Pair it with the Video Bitrate Calculator when you don't yet know your bitrate target, and the Video File Size Calculator to size a single clip against a per-file upload cap.

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FAQ

Bulk video archives run roughly $4–$10 per TB per month on consumer plans (Google One 2 TB, iCloud+ 2 TB, Dropbox Plus) and roughly $1–$3 per TB per month on dedicated object-storage backends (Backblaze B2, Wasabi, Cloudflare R2) once you include egress. For a working creator with a few terabytes of footage that isn't actively being collaborated on, an on-device drive amortises in three to six months — cloud storage really earns its cost when multiple editors need simultaneous access or when offsite redundancy is the goal.

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