If viewers are watching a YouTube playlist that loops for a month, you do not need a month’s worth of local storage just for that playback. If you also record a continuous local copy for 30 days, estimate about 324 GB (302 GiB) per 1 Mbps of recording bitrate—before overhead and other files. For example, a 30-day recording at 8 Mbps is about 2.59 TB; at 14 Mbps, about 4.54 TB.
First decide what you mean by “storage”
A playlist playing for viewers on YouTube and a continuous recording saved on your own computer or drive are different things. Hosted playback does not, by itself, require you to store the entire month of playback locally. The estimates below apply when you make a local recording.
Use the bitrate of that local recording if you know it. The rate used to send a live stream to YouTube may be different, so YouTube’s recommended ingest bitrate is only a planning proxy when the local recording rate is unknown.
Calculate storage from the recording bitrate
For a constant bitrate, estimate decimal terabytes with:
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Storage in TB ≈ bitrate in Mbps × hours × 0.00045
For 30 days (720 hours), that simplifies to:
Storage in TB ≈ bitrate in Mbps × 0.324
At 1 Mbps, the calculation is 1,000,000 bits per second × 2,592,000 seconds ÷ 8 bits per byte = 324,000,000,000 bytes: 324 GB decimal, or approximately 302 GiB. For a 31-day month, multiply the 30-day estimate by 31/30.
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These are payload estimates, not a drive-size guarantee. They exclude container and filesystem overhead, variable-bitrate fluctuations, and any other files on the drive. Leave additional capacity rather than buying a drive whose advertised size exactly matches the result.
Quick estimate per hour
At 1 Mbps, a recording uses about 0.45 GB per hour decimal. Multiply that by the local recording bitrate in Mbps. For example, at 8 Mbps, 0.45 × 8 is about 3.6 GB per hour.
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30-day estimates using YouTube H.264 ingest recommendations
YouTube’s published H.264 ingest recommendations can help estimate a recording size if you do not know the local rate. The table applies the 30-day formula to those rates; these are planning proxies, not measurements of separate local files.
| YouTube H.264 ingest setting | Published recommended bitrate | Estimated 30-day payload |
|---|---|---|
| 720p30 | 8 Mbps | 2.59 TB |
| 1080p30 | 14 Mbps | 4.54 TB |
| 1080p60 | 17 Mbps | 5.51 TB |
| 1440p30 | 21 Mbps | 6.80 TB |
| 4K/2160p30 | 42 Mbps | 13.61 TB |
Rates vary with codec and settings. For 1080p30, YouTube’s current H.264 minimum/recommended pair is 5/14 Mbps; its AV1/H.265 pair shown for that resolution is 4/10 Mbps. At the H.264 minimum of 5 Mbps, the arithmetic gives about 1.62 TB for 30 days. That is a smaller payload estimate, not a guarantee of satisfactory visual quality. YouTube’s encoder settings are ingest guidance, not a promise about the size of your local recording.
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Do not rely on YouTube to archive one month-long stream
YouTube Help says it can automatically archive live streams shorter than 12 hours and warns that a stream exceeding 12 hours may not be captured at all. A single uninterrupted month-long stream therefore is not a dependable archive. YouTube recommends making a local archive backup; its creator tips also advise checking the archive file’s integrity and confirming that its size is growing.
YouTube’s recommendation to leave 20% upload-bandwidth headroom is about network capacity, not disk space. Do not add 20% to a storage estimate on that basis.
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Choose storage for the recording you actually make
Once you have the local recording bitrate and duration, compare storage options on the capacity and sustained write performance available after formatting, their suitability for continuous operation, and whether the drive will be your only copy or a backup. The cited YouTube guidance recommends a local archive and checking that it grows; it does not prescribe a drive type, capacity, or performance rating. An external HDD or SSD may be useful, but YouTube does not require a particular device.
Or let it run in the cloud
If your goal is to keep uploaded videos looping as a YouTube live stream, rather than to keep a month-long local recording, StreamNeo runs the playlist from the cloud. It does not create a local archive of the broadcast, so keep a separate recording and backup if you need a dependable copy.
- Upload your recording or build a playlist.
- Add your YouTube stream key once.
- Go live; StreamNeo loops the uploaded videos from the cloud.
Nothing has to stay on at home. Uploaded video streams as made, up to 4K 60fps, at one price per slot with no re-encode or quality tiers. If YouTube drops the stream, StreamNeo automatically recovers. The first day is free with no card. Monthly service is $9.99 per month.
See StreamNeo or use the upload-time calculator. Start your free first day on StreamNeo.
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