Technology

Storage Calculator

Enter file counts and average sizes for photos, videos, documents, and anything else to estimate total storage — plus a recommended size with headroom. Averages are yours to change; nothing here pretends they are universal.

Last updated: September 30, 2026

Your result · Recommended storage

24.9GB

Estimated total plus 20% headroom.

Estimated storage: 20.75GB

Photos: 5.86GB
Videos: 14.65GB
Documents: 0.24GB
Other: 0GB

Free · No signup · Math stays in your browser

What your result means

Recommended storage is the headline: your estimated total plus 20% headroom for growth and filesystem overhead. Buy at or above it.

The breakdown shows which category dominates — usually video — so you know what to compress, offload, or exclude first.

How the calculation works

Multiply each category’s count by its average size and convert to gigabytes.
Add the four categories for the estimated total.
Multiply by 1.2 for the recommended size with headroom.

Formula

per category: count × avg size → GB; total = sum; recommended = total × 1.2

Per categorycount × average size (converted to GB)
Estimated totalphotos + videos + documents + other
Recommendedestimated × 1.2 (20% headroom)

Worked examples

Example: 1000 photos at 3 MB, 20 videos at 250 MB, 200 docs at 1 MB
photoCount: 1000photoSize: 3photoUnit: MBvideoCount: 20videoSize: 250videoUnit: MBdocCount: 200docSize: 1docUnit: MBotherCount: 0otherSize: 0otherUnit: MB
Result: Photos 2.93 · Videos 4.88 · Documents 0.2 · Other 0 · Estimated storage 8.01 · Recommended storage 9.61
Example: 50 GB of 4K video in GB units
photoCount: 0photoSize: 0photoUnit: MBvideoCount: 1videoSize: 50videoUnit: GBdocCount: 0docSize: 0docUnit: MBotherCount: 0otherSize: 0otherUnit: MB
Result: Photos 0 · Videos 50 · Documents 0 · Other 0 · Estimated storage 50 · Recommended storage 60

Assumptions

What this calculation takes for granted — check these before relying on the result.

Assumptions:

Default values are an example library — replace counts and averages with yours.
Sizes use binary units (1 GB = 1024 MB); drive makers advertise decimal, so a “1 TB” drive holds ~931 GiB.
Recommended adds a flat 20% for filesystem overhead, growth, and rounding.
Averages smooth over outliers — one 4K feature film outweighs a thousand text files.

Limitations

Why your real figure may differ:

Average file sizes are not universal: camera settings, codecs, and compression swing them wildly.
Already-compressed files (JPEG, MP4) barely shrink further; backups and RAID need their own math.
System software, apps, and caches are excluded — add them to Other files.

Frequently asked questions

How big is an average photo or video?

There is no universal average: phone JPEGs run 2–6 MB, RAW files 20–50 MB, and a minute of 4K video 300–400 MB. Check a few of your own files and use those numbers.

Why add 20% headroom?

Filesystems need free space to work well, libraries grow, and averages hide outliers. Buying exactly the estimate guarantees running out.

Why does my 1 TB drive show less?

Makers advertise decimal terabytes (1,000,000,000,000 bytes) while operating systems measure binary — about 931 GiB usable before formatting.

KB, MB, GB — 1000 or 1024?

This calculator uses 1024 throughout (KiB/MiB/GiB behaviour), matching how operating systems report file sizes. Drive packaging uses 1000.

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