Entertainment · Plan the offline library · entertainment-3

Estimate the storage you need

File size follows directly from bitrate and running time, so you can size the drives before you buy them.

How

Use the rule: bytes = average bitrate in bits per second x seconds, divided by 8. Emby shows a two-hour film at 10 Mbit/s comes to about 9 GB of video.
For a reference point, YouTube's recommended upload bitrates are 5 Mbit/s for 720p, 8 Mbit/s for 1080p and 35 to 45 Mbit/s for 4K. Netflix's own data guide gives up to 1 GB per hour for SD, 3 GB for HD and 7 GB for 4K.
Purchased music from the iTunes Store (iTunes Plus) is 256 kbit/s AAC, which is a good default for music planning.
Check the real sizes of a few of your own ebook files and use their average; illustrated and comic books are much larger than text-only books.
Add any Kiwix packages: the full Wikipedia Kiwix Hotspot image is 200 GB.
Enter your numbers in the library storage calculator to get total GB and the number of drives for every copy.

Media file size and duration. Emby Learn, accessed 2026-11
YouTube recommended upload encoding settings. YouTube Help (Google), accessed 2026-11
How to control how much data Netflix uses. Netflix Help Center, accessed 2026-11
iTunes Plus. Apple Support (iTunes User Guide), accessed 2026-11
Kiwix Hotspot: Wikipedia content bundle. Kiwix, accessed 2026-11