How Many Hours of Video Can 1TB Hold?
1 TB holds about 1 d 17 h of consumer 4K at 30 frames per second, about 3 d 17 h of 1080p, and about 2 h 30 min of ProRes 422 HQ at UHD. A terabyte is normally a drive rather than a card, which changes what the number is for: it is a day of acquisition and, until you get home, the only copy of it.
Open the full calculator for codecs, audio and safety margin.
Every format, on 1 TB
Each line is a published data rate or a documented derivation, never an estimate invented to fill a row. The source is in the last column, and it links to the document it came from: the Apple ProRes white paper, the GoPro HERO13 Black capacity chart, YouTube recommended upload encoding settings and the Blackmagic RAW data rate calculator. The full trail is on the sources page.
| Format | Data rate | Recording time | Per minute | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GoPro HERO13 Black 1080p 30 fps, standard bit rate | 24.84 Mbps | 3 d 17 h | 186.3 MB | GoPro capacity chart |
| GoPro HERO13 Black 1080p 60 fps, standard bit rate | 37.18 Mbps | 2 d 11 h | 278.9 MB | GoPro capacity chart |
| GoPro HERO13 Black 4K 30 fps, standard bit rate | 53 Mbps | 1 d 17 h | 397.5 MB | GoPro capacity chart |
| GoPro HERO13 Black 4K 30 fps, high bit rate | 103.4 Mbps | 21 h 29 min | 775.8 MB | GoPro capacity chart |
| GoPro HERO13 Black 4K 60 fps, high bit rate | 138.8 Mbps | 16 h 0 min | 1.041 GB | GoPro capacity chart |
| GoPro HERO13 Black 5.3K 60 fps, high bit rate | 138.8 Mbps | 16 h 0 min | 1.041 GB | GoPro capacity chart |
| YouTube 1080p upload target, 30 fps | 8 Mbps | 11 d 13 h | 60 MB | YouTube |
| YouTube 1080p upload target, 60 fps | 12 Mbps | 7 d 17 h | 90 MB | YouTube |
| YouTube 4K upload target, 30 fps, low end of the range | 35 Mbps | 2 d 15 h | 262.5 MB | YouTube |
| YouTube 4K upload target, 30 fps, high end of the range | 45 Mbps | 2 d 1 h | 337.5 MB | YouTube |
| ProRes 422 Proxy, HD 1080 30p | 45 Mbps | 2 d 1 h | 337.5 MB | Apple white paper |
| ProRes 422 HQ, HD 1080 30p | 220 Mbps | 10 h 6 min | 1.65 GB | Apple white paper |
| ProRes 422 Proxy, UHD 4K 30p | 182 Mbps | 12 h 12 min | 1.365 GB | Apple white paper |
| ProRes 422 HQ, UHD 4K 24p | 707 Mbps | 3 h 8 min | 5.303 GB | Apple white paper |
| ProRes 422 HQ, UHD 4K 30p | 884 Mbps | 2 h 30 min | 6.63 GB | Apple white paper |
| ProRes 4444, DCI 4K 24p | 1.131 Gbps | 1 h 57 min | 8.483 GB | Apple white paper |
| Blackmagic RAW 12:1, 6K DCI 24 fps | 477.8 Mbps | 4 h 39 min | 3.583 GB | Blackmagic ratio, derived |
| Blackmagic RAW 5:1, 6K DCI 24 fps | 1.147 Gbps | 1 h 56 min | 8.6 GB | Blackmagic ratio, derived |
| Blackmagic RAW 3:1, 6K DCI 24 fps | 1.911 Gbps | 1 h 9 min | 14.33 GB | Blackmagic ratio, derived |
ProRes on 1 TB
Apple publishes a target data rate for every supported frame size and frame rate in the Apple ProRes white paper. A terabyte is where ProRes finally becomes a working day rather than a block of one, so the table below is the one to plan a shoot against.
| Format | 422 Proxy | 422 LT | 422 | 422 HQ | 4444 | 4444 XQ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HD 1920 x 1080 24p | 2 d 13 h | 1 d 3 h | 18 h 59 min | 12 h 37 min | 8 h 25 min | 5 h 36 min |
| HD 1920 x 1080 30p | 2 d 1 h | 21 h 47 min | 15 h 7 min | 10 h 6 min | 6 h 44 min | 4 h 29 min |
| UHD 3840 x 2160 24p | 15 h 19 min | 6 h 46 min | 4 h 43 min | 3 h 8 min | 2 h 5 min | 1 h 23 min |
| UHD 3840 x 2160 30p | 12 h 12 min | 5 h 25 min | 3 h 46 min | 2 h 30 min | 1 h 40 min | 1 h 7 min |
| DCI 4K 4096 x 2160 24p | 14 h 20 min | 6 h 20 min | 4 h 25 min | 2 h 56 min | 1 h 57 min | 1 h 18 min |
GoPro on 1 TB
GoPro publishes recording times for the HERO13 Black on a 128 GB card in its GoPro HERO13 Black capacity chart, and states that you can scale them to your own card. These are their figures scaled by 7.813.
| Mode | High bit rate | Standard bit rate |
|---|---|---|
| 5.3K 60 fps | 16 h 0 min | 1 d 7 h |
| 5.3K 30 fps | 16 h 8 min | 1 d 10 h |
| 5.3K 24 fps | 16 h 8 min | 1 d 13 h |
| 4K 120 fps | 15 h 53 min | 1 d 0 h |
| 4K 60 fps | 16 h 0 min | 1 d 9 h |
| 4K 30 fps | 21 h 29 min | 1 d 17 h |
| 4K 24 fps | 1 d 1 h | 2 d 13 h |
| 2.7K 240 fps | 15 h 53 min | 1 d 2 h |
| 1080p 240 fps | 16 h 0 min | 1 d 5 h |
| 1080p 120 fps | 20 h 50 min | 1 d 15 h |
| 1080p 60 fps | 1 d 5 h | 2 d 11 h |
| 1080p 30 fps | 1 d 23 h | 3 d 17 h |
What 1 TB really is
One terabyte here means 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, which is how drive and card makers label it. Your computer will show roughly 931 of its own gigabytes, which are really gibibytes. Those boundaries come from the SD Association capacity overview.
Your computer will report this drive as roughly 0.91 TiB, because the operating system divides by 1024 three times and keeps writing GB on the screen. Both numbers describe the same 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. This page uses decimal bytes, the unit printed on the drive and the unit Blackmagic uses in its own data rate calculator, which reports a terabyte the same way.
At a terabyte you are usually talking about a drive rather than a card, and a drive has a second job: it is often the only copy until you get home. Capacity planning and backup planning stop being separate conversations.
What this capacity is good for
A day of raw on a cinema camera, or a working scratch drive for an edit.
The division, at raw data rates
Same single division as everywhere else on this site, run against numbers large enough that the result is a surprise.
1 TB is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, so 8,000,000,000,000 bits. Blackmagic RAW 5:1 at 6K DCI 24 fps works out at 1.147 Gbps from the compression ratio Blackmagic publishes. Divide and a terabyte holds 1 h 56 min.
Read that again with a call sheet in your hand. A twelve hour day with a camera on that setting does not fit on one terabyte, and it never did. This is the arithmetic that decides how much media a raw shoot has to hire, and it is worth doing before the quote rather than after.
What one hour costs on 1 TB
Turn it around. On a raw shoot the planning unit is the hour, and this is what one costs out of a terabyte.
- One hour of consumer 1080p 30, at 24.8 Mbps, is 11.2 GB, which is 1.1 percent of it.
- One hour of consumer 4K 30, at 53 Mbps, is 23.9 GB, which is 2.4 percent of it.
- One hour of a 4K delivery file at the YouTube target of 40 Mbps is 18 GB, which is 1.8 percent of it.
- One hour of Blackmagic RAW 12:1 at 6K DCI 24 fps is 215 GB, which is 21 percent of it.
- One hour of ProRes 422 HQ at UHD 30p is 397.8 GB, which is 40 percent of it.
Whichever line describes your job, multiply it by cameras and by days, then double the total. A terabyte of footage needs two terabytes of drive, and the second one travels in a different bag.
A terabyte is usually the only copy, and that changes the sum
Every other capacity on this site is media. This one is normally a drive, and a drive on a shoot has a second job nobody writes into the schedule: it is the only copy of the work until it reaches somewhere with a second drive in it.
So the useful question is not how much fits. It is how much fits that you are willing to lose. A terabyte holds about 1 h 56 min of Blackmagic RAW 5:1 at 6K DCI 24 fps, or about 2 h 30 min of ProRes 422 HQ at UHD 30p. Fill it, and one object in one bag now contains a shooting day that cost a crew, a location and a client to produce. The honest planning number is therefore two terabytes of drive for one terabyte of footage, and the second one travels separately.
That is not caution for its own sake. It is the cheapest insurance in the whole budget, and the only line item on a shoot that pays for itself the first time it is needed.
The gap between the label and the readout is largest here
A terabyte is 1,000,000,000,000 bytes because that is how drive makers count. Your operating system divides that by 1024 three times and shows about 0.91 TiB, while still writing GB on the screen. Nothing is missing. Both numbers describe the same bytes.
What makes it worth mentioning on this page rather than the others is the size of the apparent shortfall. On a 32 GB card the difference looks like a rounding error. Here it looks like most of a hundred gigabytes has gone somewhere, and people plan around the wrong figure. Every result on this page uses the decimal reading, the one printed on the box, which is also how Apple and Blackmagic label their own published rates.
A scratch drive is not a full drive
If this terabyte is an edit drive rather than a shooting drive, subtract before you plan. Cache, render files, optimised media and autosaves all live there, and an editing application that runs out of room mid render fails in ways that waste an afternoon. Read the free space, put that number into the calculator instead of the label, and leave the last fifth alone.
Common questions
How many hours of video can 1TB hold?
It depends on the data rate. At consumer 4K 30 fps, using GoPro published figures, 1 TB holds about 1 d 17 h. At 1080p 30 it holds about 3 d 17 h. At ProRes 422 HQ UHD 30p, which Apple publishes as 884 Mbps, it holds about 2 h 30 min.
How many hours of 4K video can 1TB hold?
At a consumer 4K bitrate of about 53 Mbps, roughly 1 d 17 h. At the higher bitrate setting the same camera cuts that to about 21 h 29 min. Professional codecs are far heavier: ProRes 422 HQ at UHD 30p gives about 2 h 30 min.
How long can you record 4K on 1TB?
The drive holds about 1 d 17 h of consumer 4K at 30 fps, but holding it and recording it in one unbroken take are different things. Heat, battery life and per clip limits stop most cameras long before the media is full. Plan around the shooting day rather than around one long take.
How many hours of 1080p video can 1TB hold?
At the 24.8 Mbps that GoPro published times imply for 1080p 30, about 3 d 17 h. A finished delivery file is much lighter: at the YouTube 1080p upload target of 8 Mbps, 1 TB holds about 11 d 13 h. Camera footage and delivery files are different animals and the gap between them is the whole reason a single answer to this question does not exist.
Why does a 1TB drive show as about 931 GB on my computer?
Because two different units share one abbreviation. The maker counts a terabyte as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes. Your operating system divides that by 1,073,741,824 to get gibibytes and then writes GB anyway. The drive is about 0.91 TiB in those units. Nothing is missing and no space was lost, and this page uses the decimal reading throughout because that is what Apple, Blackmagic and the card makers use in their own published figures.
How much raw footage fits on a 1TB drive?
Using the compression ratios Blackmagic publishes, about 4 h 39 min at Blackmagic RAW 12:1 6K DCI 24 fps, about 1 h 56 min at 5:1, and about 1 h 9 min at 3:1. Blackmagic publishes the ratio rather than a table of rates, so those data rates are derived from the ratio and the sensor frame, and the derivation is set out on the sources page.
Is one terabyte enough for a shooting day?
For consumer and mirrorless formats, comfortably: about 1 d 17 h of consumer 4K 30. For a cinema camera it is a day and no margin, and it is also the only copy until you get home. Plan two terabytes of drive for every terabyte of footage and keep the second one in a different bag.