Recording
Bitrate × active hours × retention. No resolution folklore.
Independent CCTV system planning
Plan the recorder
before the ladder.
Turn camera bitrates into a defensible storage and network plan. The arithmetic stays visible, and the project stays in your browser.
PROJECT / QUICK ESTIMATELive calculation
Network
See the sustained recorder traffic before it reaches the switch.
Power
Budget PoE from maximum camera draw, then add explicit headroom.
Capacity
Keep channel, drive, and reserve assumptions in the same plan.
The complete toolkit
One constraint at a time.
Or all of them together.
01 / Flagship worksheet
System planner
Model mixed camera groups once and check storage, recording traffic, PoE draw, channel headroom, and switch capacity together.
02 / TB requiredStorage
Estimate the decimal terabytes needed from camera count, measured or stated bitrate, recording schedule, activity, retention, and overhead.
03 / Mb/s requiredBandwidth
Separate local recording traffic from remote-viewing upload and add explicit capacity headroom.
04 / Watts requiredPoE budget
Check total camera load, switch power headroom, and the per-port limit using each camera’s maximum stated draw.
05 / Usable TBRAID capacity
Compare raw, protected, and working capacity for single-disk, RAID 1, RAID 5, RAID 6, and RAID 10 layouts.
06 / Days retainedmicroSD retention
Estimate how many hours or days fit on a camera card from usable capacity, bitrate, schedule, activity, and overhead.
The Camera Ledger rule
Inputs you can verify. Formulas you can inspect. Limits you can see.
Compression efficiency changes with motion, scene detail, lighting, firmware, and encoder settings. That is why Camera Ledger starts with bitrate rather than claiming every 4K camera consumes the same storage.
TB = cameras × Mb/s × seconds recorded ÷ 8 ÷ 1,000,000
Field notes
Read the assumption
before you trust it.
018 min ↗027 min ↗036 min ↗
How much storage do security cameras need?
A bitrate-first method for sizing retention without pretending resolution alone determines storage.
Security camera bitrate: what to use in a storage plan
Where bitrate comes from, why it moves, and how to build low/base/high scenarios.
H.264 vs H.265 storage: plan the saving, do not assume it
Why codec efficiency is scene-dependent and how to verify the result before buying drives.