Storage requirements

This article helps disk size dimensioning. Required storage size depends upon the number and length of calls and the applied codec.

Estimate your storage requirements

You can download the Excel Verba Storage Calculator Sheet to estimate your storage requirements for IM, voice, video, telepresence and screen recording applications. It also provides you information on database storage sizing.

The calculator sheet includes Excel macros, which might be disabled when the file is downloaded from the site. Please Enable Editing and Enable Content (to turn on macros) when Excel is asking for it, otherwise the calculator will not work.

Supported voice and video codecs for recording

The system supports recording of the following voice codecs:

Codec nameSample rates

G.711 A-law, G.711 μ-law

8Khz
G.7238Khz
G.726-16, G.726-24, G.726-32, G.726-408Khz
G.7288Khz
G.729, G.729A, G.729B, G.729AB8Khz
GSM8Khz
iLBC8Khz
RED8Khz
G.72216Khz
SILK8Khz, 16Khz
Microsoft RTAudio (X-MSRTA)8Khz, 16Khz
G.722.116Khz, 32Khz
Siren7, Siren1416Khz, 32Khz
Speex8Khz, 16Khz, 32Khz
Opus8Khz, 16Khz, 48Khz
CELT8Khz, 16Khz, 32Khz, 48Khz
L8 (PCM8)8Khz, 16Khz, 32Khz, 48Khz
L16 (PCM16, Cisco Wideband)8Khz, 16Khz, 32Khz, 48Khz
MP4A-LATM48Khz
MPEG4-generic48Khz
AAC-LD48Khz

 

The system supports the recording of the following video codecs:

  • H.261
  • H.263
  • H.263+
  • H.263++
  • H.264
  • H.264 SVC
  • VP8

Voice codecs for storage

The Verba system is able to store audio files in many file formats with different codecs. The sample rate of the output file depends on the sample rate of the input codec (see above).

Supported formats:

Codec for storing mediaFile formatSample rateBandwidth1-minute file size1-hour file size
PCM16


wav8Khz128 Kbps960 KB56.3 MB
16Khz256 Kbps1.9 MB112.5 MB
32Khz512 Kbps3.8 MB225 MB
48Khz768 Kbps5.6 MB337.5 MB
PCM8   wav8Khz64 Kbps480 KB28.1 MB
16Khz128 Kbps960 KB56.3 MB
32Khz256 Kbps1.9 MB112.5 MB
48Khz384 Kbps2.8 MB168.8 MB
G.711
(both A and μ)
wav8Khz64 Kbps480 KB28.1 MB
16Khz128 Kbps960 KB56.3 MB
32Khz256 Kbps1.9 MB112.5 MB
48Khz384 Kbps2.8 MB168.8 MB
MSADPCMwav8Khz32 Kbps240 KB14.1 MB
16Khz64 Kbps480 KB28.1 MB
32Khz128 Kbps960 KB56.3 MB
48Khz192 Kbps1.4 MB84.4 MB
GSM FR
most used 
wav8Khz13,2 Kbps99 KB5.8 MB
Speex

ogg8Khz6 Kbps45 KB2.6 MB
16Khz16 Kbps120 KB7 MB
32Khz24 Kbps180 KB10.5 MB
High Quality Speex

ogg8Khz10 Kbps75 KB4.4 MB
16Khz24 Kbps180 KB10.5 MB
32Khz32 Kbps240 KB14.1 MB
Opusogg8Khz9 Kbps67.5 KB4 MB
16Khz18 Kbps135 KB7.9 MB
24Khz24 Kbps180 KB10.5 MB
48Khz32 Kbps240 KB14.1 MB
High Quality Opusogg8Khz14 Kbps105 KB6.2 MB
16Khz24 Kbps180 KB10.5 MB
24Khz32 Kbps240 KB14.1 MB
48Khz48 Kbps360 KB21.1 MB

Stereo recording

With stereo recording, the caller and the callee are recorded into two separate channels; caller in the left channel and the callee in the right channel. This enables listening to the participants separately during the playback.

In the case of stereo recording mode, the recorded media file sizes have to be multiplied by two. There are two exceptions: 

  • GSM FR does not support stereo recording
  • In the case of Speex codec, the multiplier is only 1.2X

Silence Suppression (Voice Activity Detection, VAD)

The size of the recorded media files can be reduced by enabling the silence suppression. This is achieved by not writing data to disk when there is only silence in the voice calls. In this case, the size of the recorded media will depend on how much silence there is in the call, but the average reduction in the file size is 25%.

Silence suppression can be enabled in two ways:

Selecting a storage codec which supports silence suppression

There are several codecs which natively support silence suppression. This enables the size reduction of the recorded media files regardless of the recorded platform. The list of these codecs is the following:

  • Speex with silence suppression
  • High Quality Speex with silence suppression
  • Opus with silence suppression
  • High Quality Opus with silence suppression

Enabling the silence suppression (VAD) on the recorder service side

Verba also supports silence suppression on the recording service side. This is not available in the case of Skype for Business or passive recording. The VAD settings can be found under the Unified Call Recorder \ Media Recorder \ Media Splitting node in the server configuration.

Playback support

The system can also playback recordings in the following formats in addition to the above. These formats are usually applicable when the calls are migrated or imported from 3rd party systems.

  • WAVE G.723.1 Mono/Stereo 
  • WAVE G.729 Mono/Stereo 
  • WAVE G.722 Mono/Stereo 
  • WAVE G.726 Mono/Stereo
  • MP3
  • WMA
  • MP4 AAC
  • AU
  • VOX