How long can I record on a 1 TB drive?

At 48 kHz, 24-bit, mono: approximately 6,380 hours (265 days). Stereo: about 3,190 hours. With 24 tracks: about 266 hours (11 days). Storage is rarely a concern with modern drives, but bandwidth (disk speed) can be a limiting factor for high track counts.

How do I calculate recording time from free disk space?

Recording Time (seconds) = Free Space (bytes) / (Sample Rate × Bytes per sample × Tracks). For example: 100 GB / (48,000 × 3 × 24) = 100 GB / 3,456,000 bytes/s = 30,178 seconds = 503 minutes = 8.4 hours.

Do I need an SSD for recording?

For small track counts (1-8 tracks at 48 kHz), a 7200 RPM hard drive is sufficient. For 16+ tracks at 96 kHz, an SSD is recommended for reliable sustained throughput. NVMe SSDs provide the fastest speeds but standard SATA SSDs are adequate for most recording scenarios.

Should I leave spare storage space?

Yes. Never fill a drive completely — performance degrades as drives fill up, especially HDDs. Keep at least 20% free space on HDDs and 10% on SSDs. Also budget extra for project files, bounces, and virtual instrument data beyond just the audio recording.

AudioCalcs

Recording Time Calculator — Storage to Time Conversion

Calculate available recording time from storage capacity, sample rate and bit depth.

Available Storage

Enter the available storage

Sample Rate

Audio sample rate in Hz

Bit Depth

Audio bit depth (bits per sample)

Track Count

Total track

How We Calculate This

Data Rate

Bytes per second = Sample Rate × (Bit Depth / 8) × Track Count

Recording Time

Time (seconds) = Storage (bytes) / Bytes per second

Frequently Asked Questions

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Last updated: February 2026

All calculations are estimates based on standard formulas. Always verify results for critical applications.