Hard Drive CD/Music Capacity

[mrpetemd]

I'm sure there must be a thread for this topic on the Forum but I'll ask again so please bear with me. Except for the Olive web site I have not found any source regarding the relative music capacity of different capacity hard drives for the various music formats. I. E., what is the potential capacity of hard drives (e.g., 120, 250, 320, 500, 100 GB) for each of the music compression formats? Obviously there is no hard and fast answer given the infinite lengths of individual songs and entire albums. Again, except for Olive (http://www.olive.us/products/digitizing/capacitychart.html), where might this information be found?

 

Thanks.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi mrpetemd - Uncompressed files like AIFF and WAV consume about 10.5 megabytes per minute. Apple lossless consumes about 6 megabytes per minute. FLAC has different level of compression os it can vary widely. Using this data one can make their own assumptions about lengths of songs and number of songs etc.... and figure how much music fits on a drive of any size.

 

[mrpetemd]

Thanks. Appreciate the response.

 

[zeroeight]

A good rule of thumb is 500mb for a standard CD using AIFF or 2 CDs per Gig. For Apple Lossless 40% less memory usage.

 

[PeterSt]

An uncompressed album (WAV/AIFF) can be considered 700MB max. Use 600MB to calculate with, which is a good average.

 

This means that 1TB (1000GB) can hold 1667 uncompressed albums.

 

MP3 of better quality (256-320kb/s) comsumes ~1/6 of uncompressed on average. Notice that uncompressed is 1411kb/s. Thus, having everything in MP3 and you can store 6 times more than mentioned 1667 = 10000 MP3s on 1TB.

 

FLAC consumes ~60% of uncompressed with rock or other more "hard" material;

For classial you may reach 40%.

Not nitpicking this, use 55% for everything. Roughen that a bit, and take 50%. Thus, 1TB can hold 2 x 1667 = 3334 FLACs.

 

I don't know about other formats, because I don't use them.

Peter

 

PS: While this was by heart, you (and I) can see that this is the same what Chris said.

Had to check him of course. Haha.

 

PPS: Thus Chris likes Rock(ish).

 

 

 

 

 

[mrpetemd]

Thanks again everyone.