UniFi Protect Storage Planner for Greater LA Jobs

People ask how many days of footage they get. The answer is not a 16 TB drive. It is camera count, 4K vs 2K, 24/7 vs detections, and whether a dead disk is allowed to take the recordings with it.

We put a planner on the site for that. Camera types, days of retention, RAID, UniFi HDD SKUs, current recorders. It is a planning estimate. The written proposal after a site visit is the number that matters.

gbittech.net/storage-calculator

What it actually sizes

Count cameras by type: doorbell / G6 Entry, indoor Instant, 2K turret, 4K turret (most jobs), 4K Pro / PTZ / LPR, AI 360. Typical Protect bitrates, plus a 15% buffer so the quote is not tight on day one.

Keep footage 7, 30, 90 days, or a year. Record 24/7 or detections. Standard H.264, or AV1 if the job is on that (about half the disk).

Then the real question: a drive just died. Then what. One can die (RAID 1 or 5). That is the job. Two can die (RAID 6 on ENVR, or RAID 10). Or you are not protected. Instant, Dream Machine, Cloud Key. One bay, no RAID. The footage dies with the disk.

UniFi Enterprise HDDs in the planner are 8 TB, 16 TB, and 24 TB (UACC-HDD-E-*). Recorders from a one-bay Dream Machine Pro up to ENVR. Leave an empty bay to grow. Add a hot spare if you want one.

The default walk-through on the page is 4× 4K turrets, 30 days, 24/7: 3× 8 TB in a UNVR G2, RAID 5, one bay left empty. Change the cameras and the stack changes with them.

What that is not

It is not a quote, a contract, or a promise that footage will exist for N days. RAID is not a backup. A dead NVR, a power event, theft, or fire can still lose recordings. UniFi store prices and the NVR tariff line move. HDDs are currently list with no extra surcharge. The chassis is not. We confirm on site.

Cloud camera seats are a different product. This tool is for on-prem Protect. The NVR is in the rack. Footage stays here.