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How much storage do you need for a Plex or Jellyfin server?

By Tiny · how I pick

Enter roughly what you have (or plan to collect) and see how many terabytes you need today and in a few years, plus how many drives to buy. Nothing you type leaves your device.

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Compressed ≈ typical streaming or re-encoded files; remux = full Blu-ray quality.
A season of an hour-long show is roughly 8 to 16 hours; a half-hour sitcom season is about 8 hours.
Check your phone or Google Photos / iCloud storage usage.
How fast your library grows. 20 to 30% is common once a server is running.

You need about

your library today
after growth
drive plan

How the numbers work

Video size comes down to bitrate: GB ≈ Mbps × minutes × 60 ÷ 8 ÷ 1000. A two-hour movie at 5 Mbps works out to about 4.5 GB; the same movie as a 60 Mbps 4K Blu-ray remux is about 55 GB. The presets use typical bitrates for each quality, and your real files will vary, so check a few of yours and adjust.

"You need" includes two cushions: your growth over the years you picked, and 20% free space, because drives and file systems slow down and get harder to repair when they're nearly full.

The quality choice matters more than anything

Keeping 4K remuxes can need 10 times the space of compressed 1080p for the same movies. If you're building a media server on a budget, decide your quality standard first. It's also friendlier to low-power servers: compressed files are more likely to play directly on your TV without the server having to convert them (see why Plex and Jellyfin transcode).

Protection is not a backup

Parity or mirroring keeps the server running when a drive dies. It doesn't protect against deleting a file, ransomware or a fire. Keep a second copy of anything irreplaceable, especially photos, somewhere else. More in is RAID a backup? For the exact usable space of any drive mix, use the RAID calculator.

What to buy

NAS driveDrives for a NAS or media server

CMR NAS hard drives

For always-on storage, buy drives made for NAS use, and make sure they're CMR, not SMR. SMR drives can be painfully slow when an array rebuilds.

Check price on Amazon

Other brands to consider: WD Red Plus, Seagate IronWolf, Toshiba N300

Still choosing the box itself? See the best NAS for beginners, the best home media server, or run a media server on a Pi with Pi-hole and Jellyfin on a Raspberry Pi 4. Protect it all with the right battery backup using the UPS runtime calculator.

Quick answers

How much storage do I need for a Plex or Jellyfin server?

It depends mostly on video quality. 300 compressed 1080p movies take about 1.4 TB, while the same movies as 4K remuxes take over 16 TB. Use the calculator above with your own library.

How big is a 1080p movie file?

A compressed 1080p movie at around 5 Mbps is roughly 4 to 5 GB for two hours. A 1080p Blu-ray remux is closer to 25 to 30 GB.

How big is a 4K movie file?

Compressed 4K at about 16 Mbps is around 14 GB for a two-hour movie; a 4K Blu-ray remux is often 50 to 60 GB or more.

How much free space should I leave on a NAS?

Aim to keep drives no more than about 80% full so performance and repairs stay healthy.

Related guides

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