Tech calculator

RAID Capacity Calculator

Compare raw and usable storage for common RAID layouts.

Usable capacity

6 TB

Raw capacity8 TB
Capacity used for redundancy2 TB

How the raid capacity calculator works

Estimate usable RAID capacity from drive count, drive size, and RAID level.

Usable capacity is N drives for RAID 0, N−1 for RAID 5, N−2 for RAID 6, and N÷2 for RAID 1 or 10, multiplied by the smallest drive size.

Four 2 TB drives provide 6 TB usable in RAID 5 before filesystem overhead.

Assumptions and limitations

All drives are treated as equal to the entered smallest-drive capacity. RAID is not a backup, and formatted capacity will be lower.

Inputs and results stay in your browser. Blank, invalid, or mathematically undefined inputs show a clean placeholder instead of a broken number.

Practical use

Use this tech calculator to explore scenarios quickly, then verify important decisions against the original source data or requirements.

Frequently asked questions

Does the raid capacity calculator send my data anywhere?

No. It runs client-side in your browser and makes no network requests.

Why is the result blank or shown as a dash?

One or more inputs are blank, outside the accepted range, or would make the calculation undefined. Check the labels and enter finite values.

Can I use decimal values?

Yes, where decimals are meaningful. Counts that represent whole items may require integers.