Need to calculate the required hard drive space for audio files? These equations will make it easy.

Data Rate (kb/s) = # channels × samples per second × bits per sample

Data Rate (KB/s) = # channels × samples per second × bits per sample ÷ 8

Data Rate (MB/min) = # channels × samples per second × bits per sample ÷ 8 ÷ 1,048,576 × 60

Storage Requirement (hours/GB) = 1 ÷ (# channels × samples per second × bits per sample ÷ 8 ÷ 1,073,741,824 × 3600)

Explanation:
Divide by 8 – convert bits to bytes

Divide by 1,048,576 – convert bytes to megabyte (10242)

Divide by 1,073,741,824 – convert byte to gigabytes (10243)

Multiply by 60 – convert seconds to minutes

Multiply by 3600 – convert seconds to hours

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© 2007 Penton Media, Inc.