RECORDING / DISK CAPACITY
Give your footage enough room.
Turn bitrate and recording time into disk capacity. Check your target retention against the storage you actually have.
Built for installers.
Useful before the first cable.
Installation planner
The recording plan
Start with your streams and how long you need to keep them.
All cameras use the bitrate and maximum watts below.
Use a measured or configured average. Resolution alone does not determine bitrate.
Use 24 for continuous recording; motion recording duration is an estimate.
How long recordings should be kept.
Extra capacity above calculated footage. Set to 0 to omit.
Capacity available for footage after RAID, formatting and other reservations.
Check the recorder's separate incoming bandwidth limit too.
Bitrate is manual. Codec, frame rate, scene activity and noise all matter; resolution alone is not enough.
Your system, sized.
- Storage with margin
- 12.442 TB
10.368 TB footage + 20% allowance
- Camera traffic
- 32 Mbps
40 Mbps with 25% headroom
- Recommended PoE
- 145 W
116 W devices + 25% headroom
- Estimated UPS runtime
- 73 min
151 W estimated load
Recording capacity
WARNING345.6 GB/day · 2 TB usable. Estimated retention with margin: 4.8 days (4 complete days); target 30.
Network uplink
PASS40 Mbps minimum planned capacity. 100 Mbps nominal link suggested. 1,000 Mbps available.
PoE power budget
PASS96 W cameras + 20 W other devices. 145 W recommended / 150 W available. 34 W above device load.
Powered switch ports
PASS10 required / 16 available. 6 spare powered ports. Uplinks are separate.
Recorder channels
PASS8 channels required / 16 available. 8 spare channels. Verify recorder incoming bandwidth separately.
UPS output capacity
PASS151 W estimated load / 600 W output capacity. Includes 35 W for recorder, switch and losses.
UPS battery energy
PASS183.6 Wh usable gives approximately 73 minutes; target 30 minutes. Required: 75.5 Wh usable / 88.8 Wh nominal at 85% usable. Validate against the UPS runtime curve.
Decimal GB/TB · Unrounded calculations, rounded display · All results are planning estimates
View plain-text project summary
CCTVPlan — CCTV project estimate 8 cameras · 4 Mbps/camera · 24 recording hours/day · 30 days target retention Storage: 345.6 GB/day; 10.368 TB footage; 12.442 TB including 20% margin. WARNING Available: 2 TB usable; estimated retention with margin: 4.8 days. Network: 32 Mbps streams; 40 Mbps minimum with 25% headroom; 100 Mbps nominal uplink suggested; 1000 Mbps available. PASS PoE: 96 W cameras + 20 W other devices; 145 W recommended with 25% headroom; 150 W available. PASS Ports: 10 powered ports required; 16 available. PASS NVR: 8 channels required; 16 available; 8 spare (negative = shortfall). PASS UPS: 151 W estimated load, including 35 W recorder/switch/loss allowance; 600 W capacity. PASS Battery: 216 Wh nominal at 85% estimated usable fraction; 73 min estimated runtime vs 30 min target. PASS Required battery: 75.5 Wh usable AC energy / 88.8 Wh nominal at 85%. Decimal units: 1 GB = 10^9 bytes; 1 TB = 1,000 GB. Estimates use a constant average bitrate and maximum device power. Verify VBR peaks, recorder throughput, per-port PoE standards and UPS manufacturer runtime curves. No equipment compatibility guarantee.
CCTVPlan · Project summary
CCTVPlan — CCTV project estimate 8 cameras · 4 Mbps/camera · 24 recording hours/day · 30 days target retention Storage: 345.6 GB/day; 10.368 TB footage; 12.442 TB including 20% margin. WARNING Available: 2 TB usable; estimated retention with margin: 4.8 days. Network: 32 Mbps streams; 40 Mbps minimum with 25% headroom; 100 Mbps nominal uplink suggested; 1000 Mbps available. PASS PoE: 96 W cameras + 20 W other devices; 145 W recommended with 25% headroom; 150 W available. PASS Ports: 10 powered ports required; 16 available. PASS NVR: 8 channels required; 16 available; 8 spare (negative = shortfall). PASS UPS: 151 W estimated load, including 35 W recorder/switch/loss allowance; 600 W capacity. PASS Battery: 216 Wh nominal at 85% estimated usable fraction; 73 min estimated runtime vs 30 min target. PASS Required battery: 75.5 Wh usable AC energy / 88.8 Wh nominal at 85%. Decimal units: 1 GB = 10^9 bytes; 1 TB = 1,000 GB. Estimates use a constant average bitrate and maximum device power. Verify VBR peaks, recorder throughput, per-port PoE standards and UPS manufacturer runtime curves. No equipment compatibility guarantee.
Transparent assumptions.
Practical estimates.
Size CCTV storage from bitrate and time
Storage grows in direct proportion to camera count, average recorded bitrate, recording hours and retention days. Use a bitrate measured in representative day and night scenes when possible. Motion recording can reduce hours, but activity varies; treating it as a fixed saving can leave a system short. Enter usable storage after RAID, formatting and reserved space. CCTVPlan reserves your chosen safety margin when estimating how many days that capacity can hold.
Formula / method
GB/day = cameras × Mbps × 3,600 × hours/day ÷ 8 ÷ 1,000
TB with margin = GB/day × retention days ÷ 1,000 × (1 + margin % ÷ 100)
Retention days ≈ usable TB × 1,000 ÷ [GB/day × (1 + margin % ÷ 100)]
Units: Mbps = 1,000,000 bits/second; 8 bits = 1 byte. 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes; 1 TB = 1,000 GB. W measures power; Wh measures energy. Values are calculated without intermediate rounding. A displayed estimate is not a guarantee.
One camera at 4 Mbps recording 24 hours/day produces 43.2 GB/day. Thirty days require 1.296 TB, or 1.555 TB with a 20% margin. A usable 2 TB disk holds about 38.6 days under the same assumptions; plan for 38 complete days.
Before you specify.
Are these TB or TiB?
CCTVPlan uses decimal units: 1 GB is one billion bytes and 1 TB is 1,000 GB. Some operating systems display binary units, where 1 TiB is about 1.10 decimal TB. Enter disk capacity consistently in decimal TB.
Does a 4K camera always need a certain bitrate?
No. Resolution does not fix bitrate. Frame rate, compression quality, scene complexity, noise and codec settings all affect it. Use your camera or recorder's measured average and account for variability.
Does the margin include RAID?
No. Enter the usable recording capacity after RAID and other reservations. The margin is extra capacity for uncertainty in the recording estimate; it is not a RAID calculator.