- Hey, guys, my name is Matt Johnson,
and today I want to talk to you about backups.
Specifically, online backup services that I recommend,
because arguably one of the least glamorous
but most important aspects of being a filmmaker
is making sure that your footage is properly backed up
so it doesn't get deleted, destroyed, or corrupted.
So let's divide my backup strategy into two parts.
The first part that we are not gonna be covering
in-depth today is local backups.
That consists of making sure
that you are backing up your footage
to multiple hard drives, and you are not storing them
in the same location in your house.
So that way in the event that
one of your hard drives breaks,
you still have the other one as a backup,
and because they're in separate places in your house,
in the event that somebody breaks into your house
and steals your stuff, there's a greater chance
they're not gonna be able to steal both of your hard drives.
That's as in-depth as I'm gonna go about local backups.
If you would like to see another video in the future
more about the hard drives that I use
and how I back up my footage specifically,
then please leave me a comment,
and I'll look into making that in the future.
Back to backups, though.
The second part of my backup strategy
and the part that we're gonna be discussing today
is having an offsite backup of your video files.
In the event that your house burns down
and everything is lost,
or maybe somebody breaks into your house,
steals all of your things, and then burns your house down,
then you will still be okay
and your clients will still be happy,
because you still have a copy of your video footage.
So here's the good news.
There area ton of online backup services out there,
and I have tried out most of them,
and so there is a lot of competition in this area.
But here's the bad news.
We as filmmakers are not necessarily their target market
that they're looking for whenever they're offering
their backup services.
Because, as small business owners,
we don't want to spend a ton of money
on an online backup service,
but at the same time, as filmmakers,
we are requiring significantly more space
to back up all of our video files
than a lot of other people.
Thankfully, I've tried out many
of these online backup services,
and I do have some recommendations for you.
And to be clear, I'm not being paid
by any of these companies to make this video,
I'm not being sponsored by any of them.
This is literally a video that I have been wanting to make
for a while, because I have done so much research
over the years on online backups,
and I would have killed for a video like this
whenever I was starting out, saying,
"Here's me as a filmmaker, here's the backup service
"that I would recommend using."
So I hope that it is helpful to you.
With that, here are my recommendations for you.
If you are just starting out in filmmaking,
you don't have a huge budget to spend on online backups,
because hey, you gotta buy new cameras, come on, now,
then I would highly recommend signing up for Backblaze.
Because, for $5 per month, or $50 per year,
you get unlimited backups of all of your computer's files.
For $5, though, you're probably thinking,
"Okay, Matt, but what's the catch?
"Come on, there has to be some cons."
And Backblaze does have two cons.
The first con is that Backblaze
is almost too simple of a program.
You set it up, install it,
and it starts backing up your computer files to the cloud.
It is very simple.
The con of that, though, is that if you wanted to back up
a specific set of files, say, maybe,
your latest wedding that you just filmed,
and so you wanted to back that up first,
there isn't really a way to do that.
Backblaze is gonna choose which files it backs up,
and it will get to those new files eventually
whenever it decides to.
So there's not a way to prioritize files that you back up.
You don't necessarily have control over that.
It is a very set-it-and-forget-it service,
which a lot of people love,
but for me, I wish I had just a little bit more control.
The second con of Backblaze is that while
they let you back up files from external hard drives,
they do require that you plug in your external hard drives
back into your computer at least once every 30 days
to confirm that the files are still there
and that you want them to be backed up.
If you do not do this, they will delete your files
from their system.
And this is not a huge deal
whenever you're just starting out as a filmmaker
and you only have a few external hard drives of footage,
but if you're like me and you have an archive
of all of the footage that you've shot before
across 30 or 40 something hard drives
that I've bought over the years,
that could be a major pain
to have to go through once a month.
Let me plug in all these hard drives, hold on.
That would suck.
So I want you to be aware of that con
if you have a lot of hard drives
and are considering using Backblaze.
Otherwise, that's really it as far as cons go.
And overall, I think that Backblaze is a phenomenal option,
especially if you are just starting out
and you do not have an online backup service already.
Incidentally, if you wanna check it out,
I have an affiliate link down in the description
that will link you to a 15-day free trial
if you wanna try out Backblaze and see how it works for you.
Now I'm sure that you can tell by now
that I do not use Backblaze.
"So, Matt, what do you use?"
"Tell us what you use, Matt.
"What do you use for backups?"
Well, if you want more features and control
than what Backblaze offers,
what I use and what I recommend is G Suite by Google.
What is that?
It is basically all of Google's services.
Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and Drive, but for businesses.
And it has one major difference
from all of the free versions that you use.
Namely, it offers you unlimited drive space,
which is incredible.
Because I currently have over 40 terabytes of footage
backed up there.
Seriously, it's awesome.
And G Suite almost feels like some sort of weird
Google loophole or Easter egg or something like that,
because if you log in to the regular Google Drive,
and you say I want to add more space,
at minimum you're gonna be paying $2 per month
for 100 gigabytes, or up to $300 a month
for 30 terabytes of space.
But if you sign up for G Suite,
you can get unlimited space for $50 per month.
Which, hey, that's definitely a lot better than $300.
Notice there, though, in the fine print
whenever you sign up for G Suite
that they tell you that you can sign up for $10 per month,
but if you want the unlimited Drive space,
you need to have at least five users.
So what I did is I signed up,
and then I created four more users,
and I unlocked the unlimited storage space.
But I hear you now saying, "Really, Matt?
"$50 per month?
"Backblaze is $5 per month.
"Is G Suite really 10 times better than Backblaze?"
Well, let me tell you some of the reasons
that I love G Suite.
First, I get the regular Google Drive interface,
so I can drag and drop files directly into my browser
if I wanna upload them that way.
And I can create folders if I want to organize
all my backed up files.
And I can do all the things that I would normally do
in Google Drive, but now I do not have the stress
of running out of space, because it's unlimited.
Second, I can use Google's backup and sync software
to selectively back up just the video files
that I want to have backed up.
So if I come home from filming a wedding,
and I copy all my files over to my computer,
I can then select just those video files
and begin uploading them immediately to Google Drive.
Unlike with Backblaze, where I had to wait for it to upload
whatever files it wanted to
before getting to the important video files
that I wanted it to back up.
The third reason I love G Suite,
and this is really huge,
is that I can use Google Drive
to deliver my wedding films to my clients.
So if I have a really big 4k video file
that I'm ready to share with them to download,
I can just send them a download link.
And the benefit is that whenever they click
on that download link,
it opens up a familiar-looking YouTube style video player
for them to preview their video file
before they download it.
It's not quite as pretty of a streaming
and downloading interface as Vimeo Pro and MediaZilla,
but it does offer a lot of the same core functionality
as those two services.
So, if you wanna save some money
and just sign up for Google Drive,
you could do that and offer
a streaming and downloading service to your clients
for their wedding films.
Also, because I have unlimited space,
I can keep download links available
for all of my clients' finished videos.
So no need to go back digging through some old hard drive
if they ask for a download link again.
I can just keep it up, and they can click that download link
and redownload their video whenever they want.
Lastly, the fourth reason that I love G Suite
is that it integrates with the Google Photos app
on my phone.
I take a ton of high-resolution photos
and 4k videos with my phone,
and I would love to have them backed up.
And because I can use my G Suite account
with the Google Photos app,
I can upload full-resolution files to Google Drive
to back them up.
That is incredible.
So, is G Suite 10 times better than Backblaze?
Well, in my opinion as a filmmaker
that films many terabytes of footage per year,
I love that I have the option to back up all of my footage.
And also share all of those video files if I need to.
That is very valuable to me.
Also, I love that G Suite doesn't have any of the cons
of Backblaze.
Namely, me having to plug in all of my many hard drives
every 30 days, and that I have more control
over what files are backed up and when.
So for me, I'm gonna be sticking with G Suite.
And incidentally, if you wanna sign up for G Suite,
I have a referral link down in the description.
And occasionally Google does send out coupon codes
for G Suite that save a pretty decent percentage
off the annual cost.
So, I will be posting about those codes
down in the description, too, if I do get any of them.
Google's kind of stingy about how they send them out.
But if I have them, I will gladly share them with you.
In conclusion, whether you are just starting out
as a filmmaker or you've been making videos for a long time,
using an online backup service
such as Backblaze or G Suite
is only going to help you as a filmmaker,
protect your footage, and keep your clients happy.
So thank you so much for watching.
I hope this video's been helpful to you
and given you some great insight into
the online backup services that I use and recommend.
Like I said earlier, if you'd like to see a video
all about my local backups, the hard drives that I use,
how I back things up, then please leave me a comment,
and I will look into making a video about that
in the future.
I also want to give a huge shout out to fellow YouTuber
Scott McKenna, because he is the first guy
that told me about G Suite, and I was like,
"That is incredible, I need to sign up, like, right away."
So I will link to Scott's channel down in the description
for you to check that out, too.
As always, if you have any questions or comments,
please feel free to leave one below
or get in touch with me through my website, whoismatt.com.
It's also a massive help to me
if you would consider liking this video
and subscribing if you wanna see more videos
like this in the future.
Also, there is a new button that says join
right down there next to subscribe,
and that is how you can join my channel membership.
What do you get for membership?
Well, you get a lot of cool emojis of my beard,
which look incredible,
and you also get to be first in line
to have me critique one of your wedding films
in one of my monthly live streams.
Pretty fun, right?
Also, I'm about to be in Alaska
for most of the month of August.
Have to get away from the heat of Texas.
And I'm gonna be posting a ton of photos and videos
of my trip to my Instagram and my Facebook pages.
So if you wanna follow along,
I will have those linked down in the description as well.
Thank you so much for watching and have a great day.