OBS recording storage template.
Plan how much space a week of OBS recordings needs, then check whether your editing and archive drives can hold the copies you want to keep.
Download the editable recording plan
Start with your local OBS recording settings
Find your recording encoder and audio tracks in OBS under Settings, Output, Recording. With a separate recording encoder, your local bitrate can differ from your live stream. Count the audio tracks included in the local file. The OBS recording guide explains where these controls are.
How big is a 2½-hour recording?
For an average video bitrate of 8,200 kbps with two audio tracks at 192 kbps each, the total is 8,584 kbps. Multiply by 9,000 seconds and divide by 8,000,000 to get 9.66 GB. A 10% planning buffer brings that to about 10.62 GB. For variable bitrate or quality-based recording, estimate the average from a sample file made with your own scene and settings.
A worked recording week
| Recording | Schedule | With buffer |
|---|---|---|
| Evening livestream | Tue, Thu, Sun · 150 min | 10.62 GB per session |
| Highlight capture | Fri · 45 min | 5.27 GB per session |
The editing drive keeps both profiles for 14 days, peaking at about 74.27 GB. The archive keeps only the evening livestreams for 42 days, about 191.21 GB at peak. Capacity in this example is the free space on each drive before making new recordings. A 15% reserve on the 260 GB archive leaves 221 GB usable for retention.
Set retention around the busiest day
With a staggered schedule, the busiest rolling window can need more space than an estimate based on the daily average. The planner tests the window ending on each day of your repeating week. Add room for remuxed duplicates, exports, or proxy files if they share the same drive. Copy archives separately and check that a file opens before relying on the backup.