What is Capacity Planning and Estimation? How much data does Youtube store daily?

In the world of system design, knowing how to plan for future resource needs is crucial. Whether you’re running a small app or a giant platform like YouTube, predicting how much storage, processing power, and bandwidth you’ll need can make a huge difference. Let’s break down capacity planning and estimation in simple terms, using YouTube as an example.

What is Capacity Planning?

Capacity planning means figuring out how much resource (like storage, processing power, and network bandwidth) you will need in the future to keep your system running smoothly.

Steps for Capacity Planning:

1. Check Current Usage:

- Check how much resource you’re using right now.

- Notice any patterns or trends (like more usage during weekends).

2. Predict Future Needs:

- Use past data to guess how much more you’ll need in the future.

- Think about your business growth plans and market trends. Are you launching new features or expecting more users?

3. Calculate Resources:

- Figure out how much storage, CPU, memory, etc., you’ll need based on your predictions.

- Use tools or formulas to help with these calculations.

4. Design for Scalability:

- Make sure your system can grow by adding more machines (horizontal scaling) or making existing machines more powerful (vertical scaling).

- Consider using cloud services that can automatically adjust resources as needed.

5. Review Regularly:

- Keep an eye on your system to make sure your estimates are still correct.

- Adjust your plans as needed.

Example: How much data does YouTube stores daily?

Let’s take YouTube to understand how this works in real life.

How Much Data Does YouTube Store Daily?

1. Video Uploads:

- Imagine people upload 500 hours of video to YouTube every minute.

2. Daily Uploads:

- There are 1,440 minutes in a day.

- So, daily uploads = 500 hours/minute * 1,440 minutes/day = 720,000 hours/day.

3. Storage Requirements:

- Let’s assume an average video size is about 1GB per hour of video.

- So, daily storage needed = 720,000 hours/day * 1GB/hour = 720,000 GB/day.

- 720,000 GB is the same as 720 Terabytes (TB), because 1 TB = ~ 1,000 GB.

Simple Calculation Recap:

- 500 hours of video uploaded every minute.

- 1,440 minutes in a day.

- 500 hours/minute * 1,440 minutes/day = 720,000 hours/day.

- 1GB per hour of video.

- 720,000 hours/day * 1GB/hour = 720,000 GB/day.

- 720,000 GB/day = 720 TB/day.

This means YouTube needs about 720 Terabytes of storage every day just for new video uploads. Understanding this helps YouTube plan and ensure they have enough storage space.

Why is This Important?

Knowing how much data you need to store helps you plan and make sure you have enough resources. If YouTube didn't plan for this, they could run out of storage space, and users wouldn’t be able to upload videos.

Recap of Steps:

1. Check Current Use: See how much you use now.

2. Predict Future Use: Guess how much more you’ll need.

3. Calculate Needs: Figure out exact numbers.

4. Plan for Scalability: Make sure you can add more resources easily.

5. Keep Checking: Regularly update your plans.

By following these steps, YouTube ensures they have enough space to store all the videos uploaded every day, and you can use similar steps to plan for any system you are designing.

Feel free to share your thoughts or ask questions in the comments. Let's discuss how you handle capacity planning in your projects!

Follow Nikki M. for more updates.