hey my name is matt johnson and if
you're a filmmaker or photographer or
basically anyone that uses a computer
and you do not have at least three
sources of backups of your files
you are risking losing everything
ideally you need at least two on-site
backups these can be extra hard drives
that have your files on them as well as
one off-site backup which can either be
a hard drive in a different location or
an online backup in the cloud in this
video i want to share with you my super
simple and easy to use system for
keeping your files backed up on site so
this is going to cover how i have all of
my hard drives in my house set up for
backups
in my next video coming out next week
we're going to talk about online backups
which i actually already made a video
about a couple years ago but things have
changed and the companies that i
recommended are now different so you're
getting a new video about online backups
as well for now let's talk about local
backups and here's my simple system that
only takes three hard drives
first you're going to want to buy two
identically sized external hard drives
these can be internal drives if you want
but considering how fast you'll probably
fill them up especially if you're
filming in 4k or higher you're going to
be having to open up your computer
relatively often to swap them out so i
really recommend just using external
drives to make hot swapping easier as
far as which hard drives you should buy
i will link to all the hard drives and
everything else that i talk about in
this video down below
personally i'm partial to western
digital brand external drives
specifically they're my book elements
and easy store models which i typically
buy in anywhere from eight terabytes to
14 terabytes in size
they do get larger but the price goes up
as well
usually western digital will have a sale
a couple times a year and at that point
i'll buy a couple so with these two
identical hard drives anytime that i
film an important video let's say it's a
wedding that i need to back up i will
connect both of those external hard
drives to my computer plug in a memory
card reader and copy the important video
files to both of these external hard
drives
by doing this and copying the same files
to two hard drives you're going to be
creating a mirror of the data so in the
event that one of these hard drives
fails you will still have all of the
identical data on the other hard drive
as a backup once i have the video files
copied to the computer i will then
disconnect one of those hard drives and
put it up in another room that way it's
not plugged into the same computer all
the time and as a plus if somebody
breaks into my house there's less chance
that they'll find both hard drives
also if my computer were to get a virus
or ransomware that encrypted all the
files on my computer's hard drive i know
that the hard drive that's unplugged
from the computer is safe now let's talk
about the third hard drive that you need
and where the first two external hard
drives that i recommended are great for
storing a whole lot of files they're
typically only going to have a 5400 rpm
drive inside meaning that they're one of
the slowest hard drives and really not
good for editing video
because of that the third hard drive
that i recommend you purchase is an
external ssd
this ssd can be anywhere from 500
gigabytes to two to four terabytes in
size and this is going to be the drive
where you put your current projects that
you're editing
talking specific ssds i really like the
samsung t7 on the cheap end and the
sandisk extreme pro portable ssds which
cost more but are faster
so as i work my way through video
projects i will copy new projects to
this external ssd to edit from and
whenever they're done being edited i
will then copy them back to the slower
external hard drive for long term
storage
then as i fill up those two identical
large hard drives i will buy new ones
and put the old ones into storage where
i can access them if needed and that's
about it so to sum things up buy three
external hard drives two of the hard
drives should be larger so you can store
a lot of files one of which you can
leave plugged into your computer and the
other one should be unplugged and stored
in a safe location then use a third hard
drive an external ssd to edit your
videos from
but i'm sure you may have a little bit
of confusion namely you may be wondering
how do you make sure that you have all
of your files mirrored on not only your
external hard drive that's plugged in
but the external hard drive that you
usually leave unplugged well this is
where a program called free file sync
comes into play and as the name implies
it is a completely free program that
works for both mac and windows and the
whole point of this program is to help
you sync up your files between two hard
drives so every few days or once a week
or so you can take your external hard
drive that's usually disconnected plug
it in and run this program and select
both of your external hard drives that
you want to have mirrored free file sync
will then make sure that all of your
video files are properly duplicated
across these two hard drives
plus as a bonus while you're editing if
you really want to make sure that you do
not lose any of your work at all i would
recommend taking your video project file
that has all of your latest work on it
and every day whenever you're done
editing make a copy of that project file
and upload it to an online backup
service this will only take a few
seconds and this is another great way to
guarantee your footage is always backed
up and you don't lose any of your
editing progress
and if you're wondering what online
backup services to use i would
definitely recommend subscribing because
in the next video i'm going to be
covering how to properly backup your
video files online with that thank you
so much for watching and have a great
day
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