And guessing low. A 4-bay NAS with four 4TB drives sounds like plenty until you realise you shoot BRAW 3:1 on a government contract, retain footage for 24 months, and have three concurrent client projects. The calculation is not complicated, but it needs to be done before you buy hardware. This guide walks through it step by step: codec storage requirements, weekly footage volume, retention periods, the RAID factor, and how AU drive costs affect the total.
For a full overview covering hardware, setup, and workflow planning, see our complete NAS video editing guide.
In short: Total storage needed = (weekly footage volume in TB) × (retention period in weeks) ÷ (RAID efficiency factor). Add 20-30% headroom. Then check your codec against the table below. Storage is governed by the encoded bitrate, which depends on codec, resolution, frame rate, codec profile and recording settings. A BRAW 3:1 4K file uses 3-4× more space per hour than BRAW 12:1. The size ratio between ProRes 422 HQ and H.264 depends on the selected H.264 bitrate and on matching resolution and frame rate.
Step 1. Know Your Codec (It Matters More Than Resolution)
Resolution, frame rate, codec and recording settings all affect storage because together they determine the encoded bitrate. Sony A7 IV H.264 4K modes range from roughly 27 GB to 270 GB per recorded hour, depending on the selected recording mode and bitrate. A 4K ProRes 422 HQ file from the same shoot might use 200-400 GB per hour. Eight times more.
Blackmagic RAW (BRAW) is included separately by quality ratio because the difference between BRAW 12:1 and BRAW 3:1 is substantial and frequently misunderstood. Use this table as your starting estimate. Actual file sizes vary by camera model, scene complexity, and specific settings.
Approximate Storage Requirements by Codec (4K unless noted)
| Per Hour (approx) | Per 8-Hour Shoot Day | |
|---|---|---|
| H.264 4K (phone, Sony, Fuji, DJI drone) | 25-50 GB | 200-400 GB |
| H.265 / HEVC 4K | 20-40 GB | 160-320 GB |
| BRAW (Blackmagic RAW) 4K 12:1 | 25-35 GB | 200-280 GB |
| BRAW 4K 8:1 | 35-50 GB | 280-400 GB |
| BRAW 4K 5:1 | 55-80 GB | 440-640 GB |
| BRAW 4K 3:1 | 90-120 GB | 720 GB-1 TB |
| ProRes 422 4K | 100-200 GB | 800 GB-1.6 TB |
| ProRes 422 HQ 4K | 200-400 GB | 1.6-3.2 TB |
| ProRes 4444 4K | 350-700 GB | 2.8-5.6 TB |
| RED RAW 6K (REDCODE) | 300-600 GB | 2.4-4.8 TB |
| ARRI ProRes 4K (ALEXA) | 200-400 GB | 1.6-3.2 TB |
Step 2. Estimate Your Weekly Footage Intake
Your weekly footage volume depends on how much you shoot and at what codec. The simplest method: look at your last three months of projects and total the raw footage ingested. Divide by the number of weeks. This gives you a real-world baseline that accounts for variable shooting volumes across different project types.
If you are starting out or transitioning to a new camera system, use the codec table above and estimate shoot days per week. A wedding editor shooting one event per weekend at BRAW 12:1 on a BMPCC 6K might ingest 200-400 GB per week. A commercial production editor handling three shoot days per week at ProRes 422 HQ might ingest 2-5 TB per week. The range is wide. Do the calculation for your specific workflow rather than relying on generic estimates.
For drone operators, note that drone footage formats vary significantly by platform. DJI consumer and prosumer drones typically shoot H.264 or H.265 at 25-50 GB per hour, which is modest. However, government and commercial drone contracts often involve long flight times, multiple units, and high-altitude captures. At the larger scales, storage requirements multiply quickly and an undersized NAS becomes a project-stopper.
Step 3. Set Your Retention Period
Retention period is one of the direct multipliers of total storage, alongside footage intake; its practical effect depends on the workflow.
Most editors hold footage across three layers simultaneously:
- Active projects. Footage in production right now. Use the measured duration and storage footprint of your own active projects. This is your warm storage requirement.
- Recent archive. Completed projects from the last 12-18 months that you might reasonably be asked to revisit. This is the bulk of your cold storage requirement.
- Long-term retention. Footage held under contractual data retention obligations. If your contracts specify 24-month or 36-month retention windows, this becomes the largest component of your total storage needs over time.
A useful formula: Total NAS storage needed (raw) = (weekly footage intake) × (retention weeks) × (safety factor of 1.3 for headroom). Then apply the RAID factor (see Step 4).
For editors with data retention obligations, the long-term retention layer compounds over time. An editor retaining 2TB of footage per month under 24-month clauses accumulates 48TB of retention footage over two years. Before accounting for active projects. The data retention guide covers how to structure this as a billable service rather than absorbing it as overhead.
Step 4. Apply the RAID Factor
RAID reduces your usable capacity compared to raw drive capacity. This surprises editors who buy four 8TB drives expecting 32TB of usable storage and find they have significantly less.
- RAID 1 (2 drives): Usable = 50% of raw. Two 8TB drives = 8TB usable. Full drive redundancy. One drive can fail without data loss.
- RAID 5 (3+ drives): Usable = raw capacity minus one drive. Four 8TB drives = 24TB usable. One drive can fail without data loss.
- RAID 6 (4+ drives): Usable = raw capacity minus two drives. Four 8TB drives = 16TB usable. Two drives can fail simultaneously without data loss.
- JBOD / no RAID: Full capacity, no redundancy. Losing any drive means losing that footage. Not recommended for professional footage holding client data.
It balances usable capacity against redundancy. Use the RAID Calculator to model specific drive configurations before committing to a purchase.
A Worked Example. Drone and Wedding Editor
To make this concrete: a freelance editor shooting weddings on weekends (BRAW 12:1 on a BMPCC 6K) and handling commercial drone work during the week (DJI H.264 4K), with 18-month retention on wedding footage and 12-month retention on commercial work.
Weekly footage intake:
One wedding per weekend at 6K/30fps BRAW 12:1: approximately 292 GB per recorded hour, multiplied by actual recording time
Two days commercial drone at H.264 4K: ~200 GB
Total weekly intake: ~500 GB (roughly 0.5 TB/week)
Retention calculation:
Wedding footage (78 weeks at 0.3 TB/week): ~23 TB
Commercial footage (52 weeks at 0.2 TB/week): ~10 TB
Active projects buffer (8 weeks): ~4 TB
Total raw footage: ~37 TB
With 30% headroom: ~48 TB raw capacity needed
In RAID 5 (four drives): 48 TB usable ÷ 0.75 RAID efficiency = ~64 TB raw drive capacity needed
Practical configuration: Four 16TB IronWolf drives (64TB raw, ~48TB usable in RAID 5)
This is a mid-range configuration. Not the entry-level 2-bay Synology DS223, whose usable RAID 1 capacity depends on the installed compatible drive size and system overhead rather than an 8TB device limit. Whether an editor needs four or more bays depends on required usable capacity, supported drive sizes, redundancy and expansion needs. Getting the sizing right before purchase is the difference between infrastructure that scales with your business and one you are replacing in 18 months.
What AU Drives Actually Cost Per TB
Australian pricing for NAS-rated drives from local retailers (Mwave, Scorptec, PLE) typically runs:
- Drive prices have changed materially since early 2026. Verify live prices at Mwave, Scorptec and PLE immediately before publication or purchase.
- Relative WD Red Pro and IronWolf Pro pricing varies by capacity, retailer and date; compare current like-for-like listings.
Always verify current pricing before purchasing. Storage hardware prices shift regularly. Buying from an Australian retailer can give an eligible consumer rights against the seller under the Australian Consumer Law. These rights are separate from, and may outlast, a manufacturer warranty; the applicable remedy depends on the circumstances. For a professional storage setup, that matters. Pricing above is indicative as of early 2026; check Mwave, Scorptec, or PLE for current stock and pricing.
Per-Project Storage Costing for Client Quotes
Once you know your per-hour or per-shoot-day storage cost, you can calculate the real infrastructure cost of each project. And build it into quotes. If a 4TB IronWolf drive costs AU$150, your cost per TB of raw capacity is AU$37.50. At RAID 5 efficiency (75%), the cost per TB of usable storage is AU$50. A project generating 2TB of footage costs AU$100 in raw drive capacity to hold.
This is the calculation that makes the data retention billing conversation concrete. When you know your per-TB cost, you can set a per-project archive fee that recovers infrastructure costs without guesswork. It also helps with equipment planning: knowing that your current shooting volume requires you to purchase a new drive every three months gives you a predictable capital expenditure to include in business planning.
Related reading: our NAS buyer's guide.
Use our free Transfer Speed Estimator to estimate how long large transfers will take over your connection.
See also: our full Photo and Video Storage guide.
How much storage does 1 hour of 4K footage use?
It depends entirely on the codec. Storage depends on resolution, frame rate, codec profile and recording bitrate. For example, Sony A7 IV H.264 4K modes span roughly 27-270 GB/hour; Apple lists 4K ProRes 422 HQ targets of roughly 318-424 GB/hour at 24-30 fps; and Blackmagic lists 4K DCI BRAW at 30 fps at roughly 126 GB/hour (12:1) to 490 GB/hour (3:1). Always calculate using your actual codec, not just the resolution. The table above covers the codecs most common in Australian production.
Should I size for hot storage and cold storage separately?
NVMe-cache benefit is workload-dependent and should not be treated as automatic hot/warm/cold tiering; large sequential video operations may see little improvement. You size for total capacity and the NAS manages hot/warm/cold access automatically via the cache layer. Where separate sizing matters is if you are considering a local NVMe SSD for your editing workstation as the primary hot tier, with the NAS as warm and cold storage. In that case, size the NVMe SSD from the measured footprint of active projects and size the NAS for the remaining retained data. The hot and cold storage guide covers the architecture in detail.
How much extra capacity should I leave as headroom?
20-30% is the standard recommendation, and it matters more than most editors expect. NAS and RAID performance degrades noticeably when drives are above 80-85% full. Particularly for write operations during ingest. RAID rebuilds after a drive failure also slow significantly on near-full arrays, increasing your vulnerability window. Size for the capacity you need, then add 30% on top. Worth it.
What RAID level should I use for professional video editing storage?
For a 4-bay NAS, RAID 5 provides one-drive fault tolerance and (N-1) nominal capacity; choose among RAID 5, RAID 6, RAID 10 or SHR according to capacity, performance, backup and fault-tolerance requirements. For 2-bay units, RAID 1 (mirroring) is the only redundant option. And means 50% of raw capacity is usable. RAID 6 (two-drive failure tolerance) is appropriate for larger arrays (6+ drives) where rebuild times after a single failure become long enough that a second failure during rebuild is a real risk. JBOD (no RAID) is not recommended for footage under client or contractual obligations. Use the RAID Calculator to model usable capacity for any configuration.
How does BRAW compare to ProRes for storage requirements?
At 4096 x 2160 and 30 fps, Blackmagic lists BRAW 12:1 at 35 MB/s (about 126 GB/hour) and BRAW 3:1 at 136 MB/s (about 490 GB/hour). Compare BRAW, H.264 and ProRes only at matched resolution, frame rate and recording settings. If you are sizing storage for a BRAW workflow, clarify which compression ratio you are using day-to-day; the difference in storage requirements over a year of shooting is substantial.
I am a drone pilot. How do I estimate storage needs for large contracts?
Consumer and prosumer DJI drone footage (H.264 or H.265 4K) generates 25-50 GB per flight hour. Modest by production standards. However, long commercial contracts involve many flight hours, often with multiple pilots and units. For large drone contracts, calculate storage from each camera’s selected recording bitrate, planned recording hours, number of simultaneous payloads and contractual retention period, then add a project-specific contingency for additional captures. Undersizing storage before a large contract is the most avoidable infrastructure failure in AU drone production.
Know your capacity needs? Use the RAID Calculator to model usable storage by drive count, drive size, and RAID level. Then compare configurations before you buy.