The honest answer ranges from 6 GB to 90 GB depending on codec. That 15x spread is why "I shoot in 4K" is meaningless storage information without specifying the format. A YouTuber recording 4K H.265 and a commercial DP recording 8K R3D both shoot "4K and up," but their drives fill at completely different rates.
This is the table every editor should have bookmarked. It is also the one most people end up Googling at 11pm before a shoot, trying to figure out if the cards they ordered are going to be enough.
Codec planning is like crew planning. You do not just say "we need a camera op." You say which camera, which lens, which support, because each combination has a totally different footprint. Same logic applies to recording format and storage.
The 1-Hour Table
Every common 4K (and adjacent) codec, sorted from smallest to largest.
| Codec | Per minute | Per hour |
|---|---|---|
| H.265 4K (60 Mbps streaming) | 110 MB | 6.6 GB |
| H.264 4K (100 Mbps consumer) | 180 MB | 11 GB |
| H.265 4K (200 Mbps cinema) | 380 MB | 22 GB |
| ProRes Proxy 4K | 200 MB | 12 GB |
| ProRes 422 LT 4K | 410 MB | 25 GB |
| ProRes 422 4K | 590 MB | 35 GB |
| ProRes 422 HQ 4K | 880 MB | 53 GB |
| DNxHR LB 4K | 350 MB | 21 GB |
| DNxHR HQ 4K | 880 MB | 53 GB |
| DNxHR HQX 4K | 1320 MB | 79 GB |
| BRAW Q5 6K | 800 MB | 48 GB |
| BRAW Q3 6K | 1300 MB | 78 GB |
| BRAW Q1 6K | 2200 MB | 132 GB |
| ProRes 4444 4K | 1320 MB | 79 GB |
| R3D HQ 4K | 700 MB | 42 GB |
| R3D HQ 6K | 1100 MB | 66 GB |
| R3D HQ 8K | 1500 MB | 90 GB |
| ARRIRAW 4.5K | 5000 MB | 300 GB |
A few of these numbers will vary by 10-20 percent depending on the specific camera firmware and any variable-bitrate behavior. ARRIRAW in particular varies by camera body. The order of magnitude holds.
Why Bitrate Beats Resolution for Storage Planning
A common misconception: bigger resolution always means bigger files. That is true for raw codecs. It is not true for compressed ones.
Look at this comparison:
- 8K H.265 streaming (100 Mbps): ~45 GB/hr
- 4K ProRes 422 HQ: ~53 GB/hr
The 8K H.265 file is smaller than the 4K ProRes file because compression is doing more work. H.265 squeezes the data dramatically. ProRes barely compresses because it prioritizes editing performance over file size.
For storage planning, look at bitrate first, resolution second. A 100 Mbps file at any resolution stores roughly the same amount per hour as another 100 Mbps file at any other resolution, because bitrate is bitrate.
Quick Mental Math
For on-set decisions, three numbers cover most situations.
100 MB/min = consumer 4K H.265. A two-hour event at 100 MB/min is 12 GB. Easy.
1 GB/min = ProRes 422 HQ at 4K. A 4-hour shoot is roughly 240 GB. (Actual: 212 GB. Close enough for ordering cards.)
1.5 GB/min = R3D HQ at 8K. A 6-hour shoot is roughly 540 GB. (Actual: 540 GB. Spot on.)
If you can remember those three anchors, you can estimate any common shoot in your head within 20 percent.
Why ProRes Files Look So Big
ProRes is not really a camera codec. It is an editing codec. The whole point of ProRes is that every frame is decoded independently (intra-frame compression) so the editor can scrub the timeline without the computer choking. The trade-off is file size. ProRes 422 HQ at 4K is about 8x larger than equivalent-quality H.265, because it is optimized for the edit bay, not the SSD.
Most modern Macs (M-series chips) handle H.265 timeline playback fine, which means a lot of editors skip the ProRes transcode entirely now. If you do, you save massive amounts of storage. A wedding shoot that would have been 800 GB in ProRes 422 HQ is 100 GB in native H.265.
The exception is heavy color work, multicam, and VFX, where ProRes still earns its keep.
RAW Codecs vs Compressed Codecs
A different category of trade-off.
Camera-raw codecs (R3D, BRAW, ARRIRAW) preserve the full sensor data, which is why they are large. ARRIRAW is the most extreme: 300 GB per hour at 4.5K. That is roughly 5 TB for a 16-hour day, which is why ARRIRAW shoots usually have a dedicated DIT and a stack of 1 TB cards.
R3D and BRAW are smarter about it. RED uses lossy wavelet compression (REDCODE) that keeps the file sizes manageable while preserving most of the raw flexibility. BRAW does similar with its quality presets (Q0, Q1, Q3, Q5). You give up a bit of theoretical post-flexibility for files that fit on reasonable cards.
For a standard editing workflow without heavy color science, compressed camera codecs (XAVC-I, BRAW Q5, R3D HQ) are usually the right balance.
Calculator: Plan Your Project
If you have a specific shoot in mind, the storage calculator lets you enter codec, shoot length, and shoot ratio and gives you a sized estimate including proxies and overhead. Useful for ordering cards, sizing the offload SSD, or figuring out whether your existing project drive can hold the new job before you start the import.
For longer-term planning, see also the SSD sizing guide which translates these per-hour numbers into recommended drive sizes for common editor profiles.
Before You Buy More Storage
The reason most editors run out of space is not because their codec choice was wrong. It is because half the footage they imported never made it onto a timeline. Clip Sweeper scans your Premiere projects and shows you which clips were used in a sequence and which are just sitting in bins. On the average drive, that footage accounts for 30-50 percent of the total. Knowing exactly which files are dead weight is usually a bigger win than upgrading the drive.