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CCTV RETENTION PLANNER

Size recording capacity before the first feed arrives

Turn feed count, average bitrate, recording hours, and retention into a transparent primary and backup storage baseline for a Callaba video surveillance workflow.

Size my retention plan
CCTV feeds moving through Callaba to primary and backup storage16 video feeds are represented on the left, Callaba recording and routing in the centre, and primary plus backup storage on the right. The current total estimate is 41.5 TB.
A planning baseline for media capacity—not a storage quote or a replacement for validating the real encoder and retention policy.
YOUR CAPACITY MODEL

Calculate the media-data baseline

Use the average delivered bitrate for each feed. The result updates immediately and keeps primary and optional backup capacity separate.

ESTIMATED MEDIA CAPACITY41.5 TB

16 feeds × 4 Mbps × 24 h/day × 0.45 × 30 days × 2 copies

Primary retention20.7 TB
Backup copy20.7 TB
Total planned capacity41.5 TB
Primary media written per day691 GB
FormulaGB = feeds × Mbps × hours/day × 0.45 × retention days × copies
Review my multi-site planSee the surveillance workflow
WHAT THE NUMBER MEANS

A useful baseline with visible boundaries

  • Decimal capacity. 1 TB equals 1,000 GB in this planner.
  • Average media bitrate. Variable bitrate peaks and audio tracks may require additional headroom.
  • Media data only. Add capacity for containers, filesystems, indexes, operating-system use, and storage redundancy.
  • Validate before purchase. Measure real feeds and confirm the retention policy, outage recovery, upload, and egress assumptions.
FROM ESTIMATE TO WORKFLOW

Connect retention capacity to the live operator path

Storage planning is one layer of the Callaba workflow. Keep ingest, browser Multiview, recording, recovery, and controlled playback visible as one operating sequence.

  1. 01

    Measure real feeds

    Confirm codec, resolution, average bitrate, and recording window.

  2. 02

    Choose the storage target

    Attach cloud or self-hosted storage that matches the operating policy.

  3. 03

    Run the retention plan

    Record selected sources and confirm that media remains available.

  4. 04

    Review and adjust

    Compare real consumption with the baseline before adding sites.

PRODUCT BOUNDARY

Video operations—not a VMS claim

Callaba receives compatible live sources and provides Multiview, routing, configured recovery paths, recording, storage integration, and playback. This page does not claim camera fleet management, ONVIF or PTZ control, physical access control, surveillance incident search, or compliance certification. Use customer-controlled cloud or self-hosted storage for this workflow; it is not positioned as a managed surveillance archive service.

PLANNING FAQ

CCTV storage calculator questions

How does the CCTV storage calculator estimate capacity?

It multiplies the number of feeds by average bitrate in Mbps, recording hours per day, 0.45 GB per Mbps-hour, and retention days. An optional backup copy doubles the media capacity.

Does the estimate include storage overhead and variable bitrate peaks?

No. The result is a media-data baseline in decimal GB and TB. Add headroom for variable bitrate peaks, containers, filesystems, indexes, operating-system use, and the redundancy policy of the selected storage.

Is Callaba a VMS or camera management system?

No. Callaba provides a compatible live-video ingest, Multiview, routing, recording, playback, and storage workflow. This planner does not claim camera fleet management, ONVIF or PTZ control, physical access control, or compliance certification.