CCTV Storage & Bandwidth Calculator

Calculate hard drive storage and network bandwidth requirements for IP camera surveillance systems. Compare H.264 vs H.265 codec savings.

1.0.0
Version
Auth
Batch

About CCTV Storage & Bandwidth Calculator

Spec'ing an NVR is one of those tasks that looks simple until you try it. You need to know how many terabytes the drives have to hold, what the switch needs to push, and whether the four-bay enclosure on the parts list is actually enough — except every vendor calculator (Hikvision, Dahua, WD Purple, Seagate SkyHawk) assumes a different bitrate table, locks the result to its own brand, and rarely shows what an H.265+ upgrade really saves in your specific scene.

This CCTV storage calculator covers the three numbers that decide an installation on a single screen — total storage in TB, total bandwidth in Mbps/Gbps, and the number of drives you need to buy. The bitrate table is tuned per resolution (CIF through 4K+), per codec (H.264, H.265, H.265+ smart codec, MJPEG) and per motion level (office hallway versus busy street), then scaled linearly to your chosen frame rate. RAID overhead is built in for JBOD, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6 and RAID 10, with a 0–30% safety margin layered on top. A side-by-side codec comparison shows what switching from H.264 to H.265 or H.265+ saves in your config — usually 40–70% — so the procurement call is data-driven, not vendor-driven.

Use it to size a four-camera home install, check whether a 16-bay rack is overkill for an 8-store retail chain, justify a fleet upgrade to H.265-capable NVRs, sanity-check a security integrator's quote, or sketch a 32-camera enterprise deployment with two months of retention. Every input recalculates the result in the browser the instant you change it — nothing uploads, no email gate, no account.

CCTV Storage & Bandwidth Calculator Use Cases

  • Sizing an NVR install for a 4-camera home or small office before ordering drives
  • Auditing a security integrator's quote against an independent storage calculation
  • Planning an 8 to 32-camera retail chain with consistent 30 to 60-day retention
  • Justifying a fleet upgrade from H.264 NVRs to H.265 by quantifying the savings
  • Spec'ing RAID 5 or RAID 6 drive counts for 24/7 enterprise surveillance
  • Comparing motion-detection vs continuous recording impact on drive size
  • Capacity planning for a school, warehouse or parking-lot multi-zone deployment
  • Estimating switch and uplink load for a multi-floor IP camera install

CCTV Storage & Bandwidth Calculator Features

  • Side-by-side codec comparison shows H.265 and H.265+ storage and bandwidth savings versus H.264 at the same settings
  • Bitrate table covers 8 resolutions (CIF, D1, 720p, 1080p, 2K, 5MP, 4K UHD, 4K+) at low/medium/high scene motion
  • Supports H.264, H.265, H.265+ (smart codec) and MJPEG with linear FPS scaling from 10 to 30 fps
  • RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10 overhead and a 0–30% safety margin built into the drive-count math
  • Continuous, motion-detection (5–100% activity slider) and scheduled-hours recording modes
  • Quick presets for Home, Retail, Warehouse and Enterprise prefill cameras, resolution, FPS and retention
  • Handles 1–512 cameras, 1–365 day retention and 1–20 TB drives — every change recalculates instantly
  • All calculation runs client-side in your browser — no upload, no signup, no email gate

How to Use CCTV Storage & Bandwidth Calculator

Start with a preset

Click one of the four preset cards — Home (4 cameras, 1080p, 30 days), Retail (8 cameras, 1080p, 30 days), Warehouse (16 cameras, 2K, 30 days) or Enterprise (32 cameras, 4K, 60 days). They prefill the common starting points so you can refine instead of starting from zero.

Set camera parameters

Adjust the number of cameras (1–512), pick a resolution (CIF to 4K+), set frame rate (10–30 fps) and choose a codec (H.264, H.265, H.265+ or MJPEG). The bitrate table is tuned to industry-standard values averaged from major NVR vendors.

Configure recording

Enter retention days (1–365) and hours per day. Pick the scene's motion level (low office hallway, medium retail floor, high street/traffic) and the recording mode — continuous 24/7, motion-detection with an activity slider, or scheduled hours only.

Choose drive size, RAID and margin

Pick a single-drive size (1–20 TB), the RAID level (none/JBOD, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6 or RAID 10) and a safety margin (0–30%). RAID overhead and the 93% formatted-capacity discount are applied automatically to the drive count.

Read results and compare codecs

Three cards show total storage, total bandwidth and drives needed. The codec comparison table below puts H.264 next to H.265 and H.265+ at the same settings so you can quantify the savings of switching codec. Every change recalculates in real time — no submit button.

CCTV Storage & Bandwidth Calculator FAQ

No. The calculator runs entirely in client-side JavaScript — every number on the page is computed locally and nothing is sent to a server, logged, or persisted. You can use it offline once the page is loaded. There is no signup, no email gate and no tracking of the values you enter. If you're spec'ing a sensitive site (data centre, police station, retail headquarters), the camera counts and retention assumptions never leave your machine.

Estimates land within roughly ±15% of the actual recorded size, which matches the accuracy quoted by major vendor calculators (Hikvision, Dahua, WD Purple, Seagate SkyHawk). Real-world bitrate depends on lens, lighting, encoder version and scene complexity, so always apply a safety margin of 10–30% as a cushion. For mission-critical installs, plan retention against the conservative end of the codec comparison panel.

Four codecs are modelled: H.264 (AVC, baseline compatibility), H.265 (HEVC, around 40–50% savings), H.265+ (smart codec from Hikvision and Dahua, up to 70% savings in low-motion scenes) and legacy MJPEG. Eight resolutions are covered: CIF (0.1 MP), D1 (0.4 MP), 720p (1 MP), 1080p (2 MP), 2K (4 MP), 5 MP, 4K UHD (8 MP) and 4K+ (8.8 MP). Frame rate scales linearly from 10 to 30 fps against a 25 fps base.

Vendor calculators are tuned to sell their drives and rarely show codec savings side-by-side. This tool is brand-agnostic — it uses an averaged bitrate table built from Hikvision, Dahua, WD and Seagate values, then displays H.264, H.265 and H.265+ requirements at identical camera settings so you can see exactly what an encoder upgrade saves. It also covers all five common RAID levels in one screen rather than splitting storage and RAID into separate tools.

Low fits mostly static scenes — office corridors, server rooms, after-hours warehouses. Medium covers retail floors, hotel lobbies, residential exteriors with foot traffic. High is for street-facing cameras, busy parking lots, traffic intersections or anywhere with frequent vehicle and pedestrian movement. Higher motion = higher bitrate because the encoder cannot predict frames efficiently, so picking the wrong level can throw the result off by 50–70%.

RAID 1 and RAID 10 double the raw drive count (50% usable). RAID 5 adds one parity drive (N+1, tolerates one failure). RAID 6 adds two parity drives (N+2, tolerates two failures). JBOD is taken as raw capacity. A 93% formatted-capacity discount is applied automatically to every drive, so a 4 TB drive contributes roughly 3.72 TB of usable space before RAID is layered on top.

If you pick 'Motion Detection Only' as the recording mode, a slider appears between 5% and 100%. This is your estimate of what fraction of the day the camera will actually be recording — typical values are 20–40% for office and warehouse, 40–60% for retail floors and 60–80% for street-facing cameras. Lower percentages reduce storage proportionally, so a 30% motion-only retail floor needs roughly one third of the equivalent 24/7 continuous install.

It models a single main stream per camera at the chosen resolution. If your NVR also records a sub-stream for live remote viewing, add roughly 10–15% on top of the result or set the safety margin to 20–30%. For RTSP main and sub stream URLs you can paste straight into your NVR, the companion RTSP URL Generator on this site covers Hikvision, Dahua, Uniview and six other vendor schemes.

Home
4 cams, 1080p, 30 days
Retail / Shop
8 cams, 1080p, 30 days
Warehouse
16 cams, 2K, 30 days
Enterprise
32 cams, 4K, 60 days

CCTV Storage & Bandwidth Calculator Tutorial

How Storage is Calculated

Storage = Bitrate × Cameras × Hours/day × Days × 3600 seconds / 8 bits per byte. The bitrate depends on resolution, frame rate, codec, and scene complexity (motion activity).

H.264 vs H.265 vs H.265+

  • H.264 (AVC) — Most widely compatible. Higher bitrate/storage.
  • H.265 (HEVC) — ~40-50% less storage than H.264 at same quality. Requires newer NVR.
  • H.265+ (Smart Codec) — Vendor-specific enhancement (Hikvision, Dahua). Up to 70% less than H.264 in low-motion scenes.
  • MJPEG — Legacy format. 5-10x more storage than H.264. Only use if required.

Recommended Hard Drives for Surveillance

  • WD Purple — Designed for 24/7 surveillance, up to 18TB
  • Seagate SkyHawk — Optimized for DVR/NVR, up to 20TB
  • Toshiba S300 — Budget surveillance drive, up to 10TB

Tips for Reducing Storage

  1. Use H.265/H.265+ if your NVR supports it
  2. Use motion detection recording instead of continuous
  3. Use sub stream for less critical cameras
  4. Lower FPS to 15 fps (sufficient for most surveillance)
  5. Use variable bitrate (VBR) to save space in low-activity scenes

Resolution Quick Reference

NamePixelsMegapixels
720p HD1280×720~1 MP
1080p Full HD1920×1080~2 MP
2K / 4MP2560×1440~4 MP
5MP2592×1944~5 MP
4K UHD3840×2160~8 MP
Need RTSP URLs for your cameras?
RTSP URL Generator — Generate stream URLs for Hikvision, Dahua, Uniview and 6+ more brands.