How to calculate Hard Disk capacity for CCTV

Storage calculation is very important for CCTV projects. If you want to learn how to calculate bandwidth and storage for IP cameras and recording devices, so you can estimate how much hard disk is needed to record your CCTV sequences.

Hard disk calculation for CCTV
Have a question about CCTV storage?
Yes, I know ... you are about to buy a CCTV system but you have no idea how to calculate the storage needed to record the camera videos. "What hard drive should I buy? How long can I register my DVR?" If those are some questions you are asking at the moment, do not worry, I have the answer.
Calculate storage before shopping

The right time to work on storage calculation is when your CCTV project is still on paper. Wait, have you bought your cctv security cameras and recorders? Don't worry, you will still benefit from reading this article ...

It doesn't matter if it's a 4, 8 or 16 channel DVR, you can adjust the settings and record videos for approximately 7 to 30 days or even longer. But 30 days is a good number.
30 days are enough for most projects ...

I already heard people asking for a year of CCTV recording. Although that may be possible, it is not a typical situation because the project can be quite expensive for such a long video recording.
First method for calculating hard disk

Let's use a simple method to calculate the storage for your CCTV project, you just need to know how much bandwidth your security camera is using and that is the same as saying what is the bit rate of your camera.

If you are planning to use your camera with HD resolution, a bit rate of 1024 Kbps will be fine, for a Full HD resolution use 2048 Kbps as your bitrate.

With that information, you can use a formula or a storage calculator to enter the bit rate, the number of days of recording and the number of cameras
If you're in a hurry, here's the formula

There is more theory about the calculation of CCTV storage, but if you are really crazy about math and want to see the formula, here you go ...

Hard drive = ((cam_bitrate / 8) * 3600 * 24 * Qty_cam * Qty_days) / 1G

Hard disk = amount of space in GB (Gigabytes)
cam_bitrate = Camera bandwidth
8 = convert from bits to bytes
3600 = to convert from seconds to hours
24 = to convert from hour to day
Qty_cam = Total number of cameras
Qty_days = Total number of days

    1G = Divide by 1 Gig (1,000,000,000) to convert from KB to GB

For those who hate formulas

OK, you hate math and all those formulas, don't you?

You still need to calculate the camera's storage, and wondering if there is an easy way, maybe you could use a bandwidth calculator and storage in CCTV systems.

Will I have something available to help you with your CCTV project?

Yes, my friend, there is a CCTV bandwidth and storage calculator that can make your life a lot easier, so let's talk about it.
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