Free storage calculator to plan storage requirements, compare RAID levels for capacity and redundancy, and estimate cloud storage costs. Plan your server, NAS, or cloud infrastructure.
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Whether you're building a NAS, planning server storage, or estimating cloud costs, our storage calculator helps you make informed decisions. Calculate capacity needs, compare RAID configurations, and budget for cloud storage.
Storage planning involves estimating capacity needs based on file sizes and growth, choosing the right RAID level for redundancy vs. capacity, and calculating costs for cloud storage. Proper planning prevents costly over-provisioning or dangerous under-provisioning.
RAID 5 Formula
Usable Capacity = (Number of Disks - 1) × Disk SizeRAID configurations protect against disk failures. RAID 5 tolerates 1 failure, RAID 6 tolerates 2, RAID 10 offers the best performance with redundancy.
Cloud storage costs compound over time. Understanding your actual needs prevents overpaying for unused capacity.
Data grows exponentially. Plan for 2-3 years of growth to avoid emergency migrations.
4× 8TB drives = 24TB usable. Good balance of capacity and protection for media storage.
6× 4TB drives = 16TB usable. Double parity for critical business data.
1TB at $0.023/GB = ~$23.50/month. Consider Glacier for archives at $0.004/GB.
8× 2TB SSD = 8TB usable. Maximum speed and reliability for databases.
RAID 5 for capacity with single-disk protection (min 3 disks). RAID 6 for enterprise data with dual-disk protection (min 4 disks). RAID 10 for performance-critical applications (min 4 disks, 50% capacity). RAID 1 for simple mirroring. RAID 0 only for temp data.
Plan for 25-50% annual growth for typical businesses. Video/photo content grows faster (50-100%/year). Always provision 20% buffer above projected needs.
AWS S3 Standard: $0.023/GB. Azure Blob Hot: $0.018/GB. Google Cloud Standard: $0.020/GB. Prices decrease with volume. Archive tiers cost 80-90% less but have retrieval fees.
Hardware RAID is faster but ties you to specific controllers. Software RAID (ZFS, mdadm) is more flexible and portable. For home use and small business, software RAID is usually sufficient.