How we calculate your storage needs

Total Photos = Current Photos + (Monthly New Photos × 12 × Years)
Photo Storage (GB) = (Total Photos × MB per Photo) ÷ 1,000

• Typical phone photos: 3.5 MB typical (2.2–5.0 MB range). Models 12 MP–24 MP HEIC/HEIF and standard JPEG captures, including occasional Live Photos.
• High-resolution phone photos: 8.0 MB typical (5.5–12.0 MB range). Models 24 MP–48 MP HEIF/JPEG captures and frequent Live Photos on flagship phones.
• DSLR / mirrorless JPEG: 14.0 MB typical (9.0–20.0 MB range). Models 24 MP–33 MP dedicated camera Fine JPEGs.
• RAW photos: 35.0 MB typical (25.0–75.0 MB range). Spans 12 MP ProRAW (~25 MB), 24 MP–33 MP lossless compressed camera RAW (~30–45 MB), and 48 MP ProRAW (~75 MB).

1 Mbps = 0.125 MB/sec = 7.5 MB/minute
Video Storage (GB) = Existing Video GB + ((Monthly Minutes × 12 × Years × MB/min) ÷ 1,000)

• Resolution alone does not determine file size—bitrate, codec (HEVC/H.265 vs H.264), HDR, and frame rate do.
• 720p HD: 45 MB/min at 30 fps (~6 Mbps, range 36–56 MB/min) · 68 MB/min at 60 fps (~9 Mbps).
• 1080p Full HD: 90 MB/min at 30 fps (~12 Mbps, range 65–130 MB/min bridging HEVC and H.264) · 135 MB/min at 60 fps (~18 Mbps).
• 4K Ultra HD: 240 MB/min at 30 fps (~32 Mbps, range 170–324 MB/min) · 400 MB/min at 60 fps (~53.3 Mbps, matching iOS 4K60 HEVC).
• 8K Ultra High Resolution: 600 MB/min at 30 fps (~80 Mbps) · 900 MB/min at 60 fps (~120 Mbps).

Games Storage (GB) = Installed Games Count × GB per Game

• Small games: 3 GB typical (1.5–6 GB range) for mobile, retro, and 2D indie titles.
• Medium games: 18 GB typical (10–28 GB range) for handheld, AA, and rich 3D mobile games.
• Large games: 55 GB typical (35–75 GB range) for mainstream modern PC and console AAA releases.
• Very large games: 100 GB typical (75–135 GB range) for flagship open-world games, sims, and live-service shooters with high-res textures.

Apps Storage (GB) = (App Count × Installed MB per App) ÷ 1,000

• Light / utility apps: 180 MB typical (110–260 MB range) including basic local data.
• Typical everyday mix: 450 MB typical (300–650 MB range) across social, messaging, maps, and shopping apps.
• Heavy / creative & media apps: 1,100 MB typical (750–1,500 MB range) for creative tools and offline media caches.
• Default everyday baseline: 60 apps × 450 MB = 27 GB typical (18–39 GB range).

Documents Storage (GB) = (File Count × MB per File) ÷ 1,000

• Mostly small documents: 0.8 MB typical (0.4–1.5 MB range) for notes, receipts, and office files.
• Mixed files: 3.5 MB typical (2.0–5.5 MB range) for PDFs, slide decks, spreadsheets, and scans.
• Large files: 15.0 MB typical (9.0–24.0 MB range) for media-rich presentations, textbooks, and project exports.
• Other files / archives: Modeled as an initial archive (15 GB light, 50 GB moderate, 150 GB heavy) plus monthly growth (0.4–2.5 GB/month) over your ownership horizon.

Local Devices & Drives: Headroom = max(16 GB, +20% of Content up to 2 TB, +10% above 2 TB)
Cloud Storage: Headroom = max(8 GB, +12% of Content)
Total Planned Capacity = Estimated Content + Recommended Headroom

• Local devices and drives reserve +20% of estimated content (with a minimum 16 GB floor) to absorb operating system files, update unpacking, temporary caches, and the ~7% decimal-to-binary formatting gap.
• Above 2 TB of content, the additional headroom tapers to +10% on the portion exceeding 2 TB so multi-terabyte creative libraries do not jump to an oversized 8 TB tier solely from a flat percentage buffer.
• Cloud storage plans reserve a lighter +12% buffer (minimum 8 GB) because cloud accounts do not require local operating system partitions or swap files.

• Standard tiers evaluated: 64 GB, 128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, 2 TB, 4 TB, 8 TB.
• Category-aware hardware caps: Phone recommendations are restricted to realistic smartphone capacities (128 GB, 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB). If a multi-year 4K video or photo library exceeds 1 TB, we recommend a 1 TB phone paired with cloud backup or an external SSD rather than a non-existent 2 TB–8 TB phone.
• Laptop recommendations start at 256 GB and scale up to 4 TB (with external SSD or NAS workflow guidance above 4 TB).
• Recommended: The smallest practical tier for your category whose capacity is greater than or equal to your Total Planned Capacity.
• May feel tight: A smaller tier that can hold your raw Estimated Content, but leaves less than our recommended headroom buffer.
• Too small: Any tier smaller than your projected content alone.
• More than you need: Tiers above the recommended tier.

Decimal SI: 1 GB = 1,000 MB = 1,000,000,000 bytes
Binary IEC: 1 GiB = 1,024 MiB = 1,073,741,824 bytes (1 GiB ≈ 1.074 GB)

• Because Windows and some disk tools measure in binary gibibytes (GiB), a 256 GB drive displays roughly 238 GiB, and a 1 TB (1,000 GB) drive displays roughly 931 GiB before OS files.
• Our 20% headroom buffer automatically accounts for this ~7% difference so you don't have to convert between GB and GiB yourself.