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Migration Data Volume Calculator

Find out how much data you really transfer once daily change, waves, validation and retries are counted.

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Migration Data Volume Calculator

What this free tool does for you

Size the network, the transfer fees and the cutover from what you will really send, not the dataset. See whether incremental sync can ever catch up.

How to use it

  1. Enter the Data in the source and its Daily change rate; incremental backup sizes are a good guide.
  2. Set the Migration waves, the Sync days before each cutover and the Hours between syncs.
  3. Choose whether the First copy goes over the network or on an appliance.
  4. Check Your link, then the Extra copies for validation, retries and reverse sync.
  5. Read Data you will transfer and Can the sync keep up? before you plan the cutover.

Good to know

  • Sync never catches up? Add waves, add bandwidth, or put the first copy on an appliance.
  • Rolling back costs money. Changes sent back to the data center are billed egress on every cloud.
  • Save or share. Use Copy link to this result, under the answer, to get a link with your numbers filled in.
Start from a scenario

Each one fills in the fields below for a typical workload of that kind. You can change any of them.

First copy

Your link

Extra copies

Data you will transfer545 TB
Into the cloud
513 TB
Back to the data center
32 TB
Added to the dataset
+14%
Sync keeps up
Yes

To land 450 TB.

Data you will transfer
545 TB
513 TB into the cloud, which is free on every provider, and 32 TB back out, which is billed egress.

Into the cloud

First copy3 waves of 150 TB, over the network450 TB
Changes during the first copyData that changes after it was copied is sent again; on average half of each wave is already across32 TB
Sync before each cutover0.50% a day of each wave, for 7 days16 TB
Validation copies0% of the data copied a second time0 TB
Resent after failures3% of what crosses the network15 TB
Total513 TB

Back to the data center

Reverse sync for rollbackChanges made in the cloud, sent back for 14 days after cutover, with resends32 TB
Total32 TB

Can the sync keep up?

Daily change in a wave
750 GB
Each wave is 150 TB.
Your link moves a day
5.2 TB
At the usable share and hours above.
Cutover window
2.6 hours
The last sync, 750 GB, while writes are stopped.
Start to last cutover
107 days
Each wave copied, then synced, in turn.

What this means

  • Change and retries add 14%

    You move 513 TB to land 450 TB. A plan that sizes the network or the transfer service fee from the dataset alone is short by that much.

  • Rollback traffic is billed egress

    32 TB flows back to the data center after cutover. Ingress is free on every cloud; this direction is not. Price it in the egress calculator.

What this model assumes

Show
  • Waves are equal and go one after another. Each wave is copied, kept in sync for the days above, then cut over; waves already cut over stop changing on the source.
  • Change during the first copy is halved. Data that changes before it is copied goes across in its new state; only change to data already sent is sent again, and on average half of a wave is across while it copies.
  • The change rate is new data a day. Rewriting the same block twice in one day counts once; every day’s changes are sent.
  • The link figure includes 92% protocol efficiency, the same default as the transfer time calculator.
  • Retries cost time even when they are not billed. Google’s Storage Transfer Service does not bill failed attempts; the bytes still cross the link again.

Planning the target architecture?

Cloud Cost Audit: We review placement, network design and egress before the first bill arrives, so the migration does not carry avoidable transfer costs into the cloud. From $1,500, fixed. Nothing paid upfront.

See the service

Questions

Why do I transfer more data than I have?

Because the data keeps changing while you copy it. Changes to data already sent are sent again, every wave is synchronized until it cuts over, some data is copied twice to validate it, and failed transfers are resent. On a busy system that can add a fifth or more to the dataset.

How long will the cutover window be?

As long as the last sync takes: the changes since the previous sync, at the link's rate. A 150 TB wave changing 0.5% a day, synced daily over 1 Gbps at 70%, needs about two and a half hours of frozen writes. More frequent syncs or smaller waves shorten it.

Is sending data back to the data center free?

No. Ingress into AWS, Google Cloud and Azure is free, but data leaving the cloud is billed egress. Reverse sync for a rollback plan, and any hybrid traffic after it, is charged every month at internet or private connection rates. Price it in the egress calculator.

What daily change rate should I use?

Measure it: the daily size of incremental backups is the best figure most teams already have. As a starting point, file shares often change under 0.5% a day and transactional databases can pass 2%. Snapshot deltas from the storage array are another good source.

Related tools

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The migration ends. The traffic pattern stays.

Once you are in the cloud, Finitizer shows which workloads send data across zones, regions and back to your data center, and what each path costs a month.

See how Finitizer works

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