CCTV Storage Calculator
Tell us about your cameras and how long you need to keep the footage. We'll work out each camera's bitrate, the storage per day and in total, the drives and RAID to hold it, and the load on your network. Using UniFi Protect? Pick your cameras and we'll size the whole system: recorder, drives, PoE switch and a rough UK parts list.
- Storage and drives
- Bitrate and network load
- UniFi Protect, PoE and prices
Storage you need
Network and drives
Camera by camera
| Cameras | Bitrate each | Recording | Per camera a day | Group total |
|---|
Bitrate each is the average across day and night, after the scene and night settings. Motion recording assumes the percentage you entered already includes the seconds recorded before and after each event.
Drives and recorder
| Drives | Usable | Fits in | Writes per drive |
|---|
- Use surveillance drives such as WD Purple or Seagate SkyHawk in a recorder. Their firmware is tuned for many cameras writing at once, all day, and they're rated for 180 TB of writes a year. For big or AI-heavy systems, WD Purple Pro, SkyHawk AI and UniFi's Enterprise drives are rated for 550 TB a year.
- NAS drives (WD Red Plus or Pro, Seagate IronWolf, Toshiba N300) suit a NAS that also stores files, and work in most recorders. Avoid desktop drives and anything using SMR recording: they slow right down under constant writing.
- RAID keeps recording through a failed drive, but it isn't a backup. Export or archive clips you might need as evidence.
- Compare RAID levels in detail, including rebuild times, with our RAID Calculator.
Your UniFi Protect system
Checks and warnings
UniFi recorders compared
Camera limits are Ubiquiti's recommended maximums (4K / 2K / HD). Multi-sensor cameras count once per sensor. Storage uses official UniFi drives with Ubiquiti's RAID rules: two drives are mirrored, three or more use RAID 5, and the ENVR switches to RAID 6 from nine drives.
| Recorder | 4K / 2K / HD | Camera load | Storage | Drives for you | Fits? | Rough cost |
|---|
PoE power
Power is each device's maximum from Ubiquiti's tech specs. Long or thin cable loses power and adds voltage drop: check each run with our Ethernet Cable & PoE Calculator. Keep camera runs under 100 m including patch leads.
Rough parts list
| Item | Qty | Each | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total including VAT | |||
Rough prices from Ubiquiti's UK store on 14 October 2026, including VAT and the surcharge Ubiquiti adds to some items. Drive prices change often. Check store.ui.com before buying; mounts, cabling, a UPS and installation are extra.
How we work it out
- Storage per day = bitrate in Mbps × 10.8 (86,400 seconds ÷ 8 bits per byte ÷ 1,000). A camera averaging 4 Mbps writes about 43 GB a day.
- Bitrates come from Hikvision's published recommended bitrates for each resolution and frame rate. H.265 halves H.264, and H.265+ or smart codecs use Hikvision's lower target figure. Quiet scenes are 30% lower; busy scenes 25% higher, as Hikvision advises adding 20 to 30% for complex scenes.
- Night: infrared video is often noisier, which raises the bitrate. We blend day and night by the hours of darkness you choose.
- Safety margin: most cameras use a variable bitrate, so the real figure moves with the weather, light and activity. Axis recommends keeping a storage margin for this.
- Usable space allows about 7% for formatting, then subtracts the drives RAID uses for protection.
UniFi Protect figures
- Ubiquiti doesn't publish recording bitrates, so the UniFi figures are typical values for the High quality setting with Enhanced Encoding: about 6 Mbps for 4K, 3 Mbps for 2K and 2 Mbps for HD, doubled for Standard (H.264) encoding. Super Encoding is our estimate of 30% less again. Check the real figures in Protect after a week.
- Adaptive records a low-quality stream all the time (about 0.5 Mbps) and switches to full quality on detections. Detections only records just the events.
- Enhanced Retention keeps footage at full quality for the days you set, then shrinks it to low quality until it's deleted.
- Off-site copies: Protect can archive footage to Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or a NAS. Recordings stay on your recorder; Ubiquiti doesn't store your video.
- Ubiquiti recommends its own drives (8, 16 or 24 TB) or any CMR drive of 1 TB or more at 7200 rpm. 5400 rpm drives aren't recommended in RAID.
CCTV and the law in the UK
- Businesses must put up clear signs saying CCTV is in use, why, and who to contact; register with the ICO and pay the data protection fee (£52 or £78 a year for most small businesses); and be able to find and hand over footage when someone asks for theirs (usually within one month).
- Keep footage only as long as you need it. The law sets no fixed period: 30 days is common, but choose a period that fits your reason for recording, write it down, and let the system overwrite older video.
- Home CCTV that captures a neighbour's property, the street or shared areas falls under data protection law. Point cameras at your own property, use privacy masking, and put up a sign.
- Audio is far harder to justify than video. Turn microphones off unless you have a clear need.
- Read the ICO's guidance: CCTV for your organisation and home CCTV systems. The ICO says this guidance is under review after the Data (Use and Access) Act.
Plan the rest of the system
- Watching cameras remotely uses the site's upload speed: size it with the Business Internet Bandwidth Planner.
- Back up the footage you must keep, and see what a NAS or cloud copy costs, with the Backup Size & Storage Planner.
- Check every PoE cable run, including Cat5e versus Cat6 and voltage drop, with the Ethernet Cable & PoE Calculator.
- Planning Wi-Fi cameras or the access points beside them? Use the Wi-Fi Coverage & Access Point Planner.
- Never forward recorder or camera ports to the internet. Check you haven't with our Open Port Checker.
Sources, checked October 2026: Hikvision's recommended bitrate sheet; Axis's bitrate control white paper; Ubiquiti's help centre (camera limits, storage requirements, RAID, retention, cloud archiving), tech specs and UK store; Seagate and Western Digital drive specifications; the ICO's CCTV guidance.