Ever wonder how much drive space you need to record that concert? Well, below is a calculator you can use to determine this. All you need to know if your sample rate, bit depth, number of channels, and approximate recording time, and you plan ahead to make sure you don't run out of room.

We are dealing with several values that need to be converted into the easiest possible format to understand: MegaBytes (MB) per mono minute of audio. To have the formula make sense, here are our conversions:

* The sample rate is measured in kHz (1/seconds).
* The bit depth is measured in bits.
* We are using X number of Y-bit samples per second, so we multiply the sample rate by the bit depth to get the number of bits per second.
* To convert this to bits per minute, we mutiply by 60, since 1 minute = 60 seconds.
* To convert this to Bytes per minute, we divide by 8, since 8 bites = 1 Byte.
* To convert to MegaBytes per second, we divide by 1,048,576, since 1 MB = 1,048,576 Bytes (1024 squared).

So our formula is:

[ (Sample Rate in Hz) x (Bit Depth) x (60) ] / [ 8 x 1,048,576 ] = # of MB per mono minute

For example, 1 mono minute of 96 kHz (96,000 Hz), 24-bit audio uses about 16.5 MB. 24 channels at this resolution uses about 395.5 MB. After 1 hour of recording, you've used about 23.7 GB of drive space. Keep in mind that this calculator does not account for file fragmentation of unused bits due to cluster size variations, so the actual usage will likely be a bit higher than this. Also, remember to keep about 20% of your drive free for defragmentation down the road.