> how much of this is to favor cache hits for streams over picking the bytes up out of storage. Netflix's catalog historically has been small enough that it ca

> how much of this is to favor cache hits for streams over picking the bytes up out of storage. Netflix's catalog historically has been small enough that it can fit within a single rack. With 8Mbps [0] bitrates for 4k (okay, add 50% for transcoding to lower resolutions, so let's call it 12Mbps), we get about 5.4GB per hour of video. At 360TB for a single 2U Open Connect storage device [1], that translates to 67k hours of 4k video. This article from 2020 [2] indicated that US Netflix's catalog was about 36k hours. Even at 50% growth since then it would still comfortably fit on a single machine. [0] "The highest 4K bitrate on average is 8 Mbps which is also a 50% reduction compared to 16 Mbps of the fixed-bitrate ladder." https://netflixtechblog.com/optimized-shot-based-encodes-for-4k-now-streaming-47b516b10bbb https://netflixtechblog.com/optimized-shot-based-encodes-for... [1] https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/appliances/#the-hardware https://openconnect.netflix.com/en/appliances/#the-hardware [2] https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/how-long-would-it-take-to-watch-all-of-netflix/ https://www.whats-on-netflix.com/news/how-long-would-it-take...