How Much Is 1 TB of Cloud Storage? Photos, Videos and Documents
What actually fits in 1 TB of cloud storage: approximate numbers of photos, hours of video and documents, plus how to tell whether you need 1 TB or less.
Cloud storage plans are sold in gigabytes (GB) and terabytes (TB), but it is hard to picture what those numbers mean for your photos and files. Here is what 1 TB really holds, with rough figures you can use to choose a plan.
The basics
- 1 TB = 1,000 GB (some systems display it as about 931 GB because they count in a slightly different unit).
- File sizes vary a lot depending on your device and settings, so the figures below are approximate.
Photos
A typical smartphone photo is about 3 to 5 MB. Photos in high-efficiency formats are smaller; RAW photos from cameras are much larger.
| Photo type | Approximate size | Roughly fits in 1 TB |
|---|---|---|
| Smartphone photo | 3 to 5 MB | 200,000 to 300,000 |
| High-resolution camera JPEG | 8 to 12 MB | 80,000 to 120,000 |
| Camera RAW file | 25 to 50 MB | 20,000 to 40,000 |
Even a keen phone photographer taking 20 photos a day would need decades to fill 1 TB with photos alone.
Videos
Video fills storage much faster, and 4K video fastest of all.
| Video type | Approximate size per minute | Roughly fits in 1 TB |
|---|---|---|
| 1080p at 30 frames per second (phone) | 100 to 150 MB | 110 to 160 hours |
| 4K at 30 frames per second (phone) | 300 to 400 MB | 40 to 55 hours |
| 4K at 60 frames per second (phone) | 400 to 600 MB | 28 to 40 hours |
If you film a lot in 4K, video will be your biggest storage user.
Documents and music
- A Word document or PDF is usually under 1 MB, so 1 TB holds well over a million of them.
- A song in good quality is around 5 to 10 MB, so 1 TB holds 100,000 or more songs.
Do you need 1 TB?
Probably less is enough if you
- Mainly store documents and some photos
- Already keep photos in another service
- Rarely record video
1 TB makes sense if you
- Back up a whole family's phone photos and videos
- Record 4K video regularly
- Want to back up an entire computer, including large folders
- Work with design files, audio or video projects
You may need more if you
- Shoot camera RAW photos professionally
- Edit long 4K or higher-resolution video
How to check your current usage
- iPhone: Settings → General → iPhone Storage shows how much Photos uses.
- Android: Settings → Storage shows a breakdown by type.
- Windows and Mac: check the size of your Pictures, Videos and Documents folders.
Add up the folders you want to back up, then allow room for a few years of growth.
Make your storage go further
- Turn on high-efficiency photo and video formats on your phone.
- Delete duplicates, screenshots and blurry shots every few months.
- Keep finished video projects in a smaller export format, and archive raw footage elsewhere if needed.
Keep your files safe
Choose cloud storage with encryption, automatic backups and file version history, so you can recover a file after accidental changes or ransomware. CloudVault 1 TB includes all three. Questions? Ask us in the chat.