WD Purple Storage Calculator

WD Purple™ Storage Calculator App
How much storage does your smart security system need? The WD Purple Storage Calculator app takes your input and calculates the ideal capacity for your application.

microSD™ cards
Some key considerations for microSD cards are video resolution, frame rate, minimum video length to retain, and how much endurance is needed. High-res video and higher frame rate increase your capacity need. If your camera is difficult to reach, greater endurance allows you to replace the card less often.

Hard Disk Drives
For network video recorders (NVRs), you’ll want to factor in number of cameras, resolution, frame rate, video quality, and how much video you want to retain (and more). Once you plug in these parameters, you can see the recommended total storage required.


This Surveillance Storage Capacity Estimator tool (Storage Calculator) is provided for illustrative purposes only. Total Storage Capacity is calculated based on parameters selected in the tool, typical compression ratios determined solely by WD for MJPEG, H.264, and H.265 video formats and color depth based on 30 bits for 4K resolution and 16 bits for all other resolutions. Storage capacity needs may vary depending on actual number of cameras connected, days of storage required, video format, compression ratio, camera resolution, frames per second, color depth, system capabilities, components, hardware, configurations, settings, and software, and other factors.


Western Digital, the Western Digital logo, and WD Purple are registered trademarks or trademarks of Western Digital Corporation or its affiliates in the US and/or other countries. All other marks are the property of their respective owners.