Short answer: 1 TB holds about 45 to 90 hours of 1080p H.264, 11 to 22 hours of 4K H.264 from a mirrorless camera, 22 to 37 hours of 4K H.265, about 4.5 hours of ProRes 422 and only 2 to 3 hours of ProRes 422 HQ at 4K. Those figures use 1 TB as 1,000 GB; a “1 TB” SSD formats to about 930 GB, so real capacity is 7 percent lower.
How do you work it out?
Every answer comes from the bitrate. Divide megabits per second by 8 for megabytes per second, multiply by 60 for a minute and by 60 again for an hour, then divide 1,000 GB by the hourly figure.
For 4K H.264 at 150 Mbps:
- 150 ÷ 8 = 18.75 MB per second
- 18.75 × 60 × 60 = 67,500 MB per hour, about 67 GB
- 1,000 ÷ 67 = about 15 hours per TB
The bitrate depends on the codec and the mode you chose in the camera, not on the resolution alone. 4K in H.265 can be smaller than 1080p in ProRes.
Hours of video per TB by format
| Format | Typical bitrate | Per hour | Hours per 1,000 GB | Hours per 930 GB SSD |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1080p H.265 | 15–30 Mbps | 7–13 GB | 75–140 | 70–130 |
| 1080p H.264 | 25–50 Mbps | 11–22 GB | 45–90 | 42–85 |
| 4K H.265 | 60–100 Mbps | 27–45 GB | 22–37 | 20–34 |
| 4K H.264 | 100–200 Mbps | 45–90 GB | 11–22 | 10–20 |
| ProRes 422, 1080p | about 150 Mbps | about 67 GB | about 15 | about 14 |
| ProRes 422, 4K | about 490 Mbps | about 220 GB | about 4.5 | about 4 |
| ProRes 422 HQ, 4K | 740–1,100 Mbps | 330–500 GB | 2–3 | 2–3 |
| ProRes RAW / camera RAW | 1–3 Gbps or more | 500 GB–1.5 TB | under 1 to 2 | under 1 to 2 |
An iPhone in its default 4K HEVC mode writes roughly 50 to 90 Mbps depending on frame rate, so 1 TB holds around 25 to 40 hours of phone footage.
Why is a “1 TB” SSD only 930 GB?
Drive makers count in decimal, so 1 TB means 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, and macOS reports in decimal too. But the filesystem reserves a few percent for its own structures, and an APFS volume with snapshots and metadata loses more. In practice a 1 TB SSD gives about 930 GB you can fill, and the last 5 to 10 percent should stay free or the drive slows down.
On a MacBook the usable footage space is smaller still. macOS, apps and caches take 100 to 150 GB, so a 1 TB MacBook has about 850 GB for everything else.
How much do you need for a year of shoots?
Take the hourly figure for your format, multiply by the hours you record a month, then add 30 to 50 percent for project files, caches, proxies and exports. Three examples at 4K H.264 around 150 Mbps, or 67 GB per hour:
- A creator recording 4 hours a month of talking-head and b-roll: 270 GB of footage, about 400 GB with overhead, about 4.5 TB a year.
- A documentary crew shooting two days a month at 3 hours each: 400 GB of footage, about 550 GB with overhead, about 6.5 TB a year.
- A wedding studio shooting 3 cameras over 3 days: about 1.7 TB per wedding before edits. Fifteen weddings a season is 25 TB. The full working is in how much storage a wedding videographer needs.
None of those fits on the Mac. A 2 TB external SSD in India costs ₹12,000 to ₹18,000, so the creator buys two or three a year and the documentary crew three or four, with no second copy unless they buy the drives twice. The per-codec breakdown is in how much storage one hour of 4K takes.
Does the answer change with a streaming drive?
The hours per TB do not change. What changes is that the TB no longer has to be attached to the Mac. A streaming cloud drive shows the whole library in Finder at its real size, takes 0 KB on the Mac’s SSD, and fetches only the frames you play, so a 512 GB MacBook can open all of it.
Where Driveless fits
Driveless is a streaming cloud drive for Mac, launching in India in January 2027. It is priced per terabyte you keep, not per drive you buy: Solo is 1 TB for ₹999 a month with extra 500 GB blocks at ₹399, and founding members lock ₹699 a month for life by joining before launch. Every plan keeps three copies, 30 days of trash and daily snapshots. The waitlist is open and the plans are on the pricing page.
Frequently asked questions
How many hours of 1080p video fit in 1 TB?
About 45 to 90 hours of 1080p H.264 at 25 to 50 Mbps, or 75 to 140 hours of 1080p H.265. ProRes 422 at 1080p is heavier at about 15 hours per TB.
How many hours of 4K fit in 1 TB?
About 11 to 22 hours of 4K H.264 from a mirrorless camera, 22 to 37 hours of 4K H.265, 4.5 hours of ProRes 422 and 2 to 3 hours of ProRes 422 HQ. RAW formats fit two hours or less.
Why does a 1 TB SSD show only 930 GB?
Drive makers count 1 TB as 1,000,000,000,000 bytes, while the filesystem reserves space for its own structures and macOS keeps snapshots and metadata. The result is about 930 GB of usable capacity, and you should keep the last 5 to 10 percent free.