How many photos can 1 terabyte hold? To start, it can store a ton of pictures. If you have a large digital picture collection, then this is a good storage size to have, as you can store thousands of pictures comfortably.
In the table below, I will give some insight into the storage capacity of 1TB and you should be able to get a good idea of how many pictures can be stored.
How Many Pics Can Fit on 1TB?
As a note, the information that is presented below is based off real world estimates (file sizes). The storage device has the possibility to hold more or less photographs, it depends on many different factors which could be anything for the data size of the picture as well as the megapixel at which the photo was taken.
Estimates used:
1 MP = 1,000,000 pixels
1MB = 1,000,000 bytes, 1GB = 1,000MB
JPEG 100% Quality = Visually lossless JPEG compression with 1:10 ratio of RAW image
Photos – Compressed (JPEG 100% quality) Images per card. (info by Sandisk)
| Megapixels | File size (MB) | 1TB |
| 4MP | 1.2 | 732,416 |
| 5MP | 1.5 | 585,920 |
| 6MP | 1.8 | 488,256 |
| 7MP | 2.1 | 418,496 |
| 8MP | 2.4 | 366,208 |
| 10MP | 3.0 | 292,960 |
| 12MP | 3.6 | 244,128 |
| 14MP | 4.2 | 209,248 |
| 16MP | 4.8 | 183,104 |
| 22MP | 6.6 | 133,152 |
I have crafted a table for those of you who shoot RAW photos with your DSLR. Off the bat, 2 terabytes is going to hold less pictures, because RAW photos are uncompressed.
| Megapixels | File size (MB) | 1TB |
| 4MP | 12.0 | 73,216 |
| 5MP | 15.0 | 58,592 |
| 6MP | 18.0 | 48,800 |
| 7MP | 21.0 | 41,824 |
| 8MP | 24.0 | 36,608 |
| 10MP | 30.0 | 29,280 |
| 12MP | 36.0 | 24,384 |
| 14MP | 42.0 | 20,896 |
| 16MP | 48.0 | 18,304 |
| 22MP | 66.0 | 13,312 |
As you can see, 2TB can hold a ridiculous amount of photos. However, if you have been stockpiling digital pictures over years, 2TB might not be enough for some people. At least this gives you some insight into the possible storage capacity of your storage drive.
If you want to look at other storage sizes, I have guides on 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 GB, & 2 TB.