Media Storage Calculator

Everyone underbuys their first media drive. Move the sliders to match your library and see how many terabytes you are really going to need.

100
20
2,000
20k
Library size—
With 20% headroom—
Drive to buy—

    Assumes ~8 GB per 1080p movie, ~25 GB per 4K movie, ~1.5 GB per TV episode and ~4 MB per photo. The 20% headroom covers thumbnails, metadata databases, metadata from Jellyfin/Plex, and the fact that real libraries drift above estimates. After RAID the usable figure shrinks again — run the numbers through the RAID calculator below.

    Sizing a media drive without regrets

    The estimates use ~8 GB per 1080p movie and ~25 GB per 4K movie, which matches typical h.264/h.265 rips. Remuxes and full-disc rips are a different world — a 4K remux can pass 60 GB, so if that is your thing, multiply accordingly. The 20% headroom covers thumbnails, metadata and the slow drift of any real library above its estimate.

    One more multiplication before you buy: storage you care about usually needs a second copy, and if you plan RAID the usable capacity shrinks again — run the resulting number through the RAID calculator. It is also worth buying one bigger drive than you need today rather than two smaller ones: swapping a single drive beats rebuilding an array.