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The Podcast Gauntlet - Throw Down, Discuss, Rise & Shine in Podcasting
Don’t Worry About BackUps – Computers are ALWAYS Reliable
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. You're listening to the two guys talking podcast network.
- [00:19]
B
If you're like me, you've been using computers for, well, probably half of your life, if not longer. And you know what? Computers are incredibly reliable. Don't worry about the backups. Or do you need to worry? Well, guys, we're going to break that one wide open inside this episode of the Podcast Gauntlet where we throw down, discuss. Rise and shine in podcasting. Greetings, everybody. I'm Mike Wilkerson, one of your hosts.
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A
And I'm Brian Ensminger, the other one of your hosts.
- [00:53]
B
Brian, if backing up has not struck everybody in the course of, especially the last just several years when video has become such a leaned on part of the ecosystem inside of social media and podcasting, man, I don't, I don't know how to be more clear. Guys, it's time to start backing up. And I'm talking about a real backup plan. I'm not talking about going to grab a. A portable hard drive that you get to keep in the corner of your office. I'm talking about something real.
- [01:21]
A
Yeah, I agree. And I think there's actually. So in my mind there's two ways to think about backups. The one you've already hit on, which is file backups. The other one is recording backups, which I think a lot of podcasters forget about. And this is actually one of the things that. One of the first issues I had with podcasting, and I'll maybe tell the story a little bit later, but I actually had a recording that I lost and that changed immensely how I looked at my recording process so that I didn't have that happen again.
- [01:53]
B
Yeah, I'll tell you, it will happen once and then you will instantly decide you wish you'd done something else, but then you will then implement something else. Thankfully, we've been involved with a variety of backup systems. The one that we're still using to this day is carbonite.com we'll put a link inside the show notes for this episode. It's not an affiliate link. It's just something I gotta tell you. If you're not using something and you're looking for something comprehensive that just shuts up and backs up, it's tremendous. It literally is a install it and forget it. The status systems that are available inside of it I think are super straightforward, regardless of platform. And again, it's not terribly expensive. For the cost of a couple hundred dollars every year, you can have your entire system, as you continue to use it, backed up. And I just Call that all kinds of awesome. What it also allows you to do is it allows you to go and grab remote files from wherever, whenever you want. Which is decidedly cool because if you're on site someplace, you need to get a file, whether it's just something as small as a sound effect or an entire RAW reel that you need to get to an editor man, it really does make a lot of sense. It also allows you to just allow people to go and grab the files that are inside of a series of structured file systems and only that file. Yeah. So there's a lot of value to that. And remember, there. There've got to be at least, I don't know, 20 different systems that are like Carbonite, that allow you to back up your stuff automatically, traditionally, while you sleep, no less, so that you're not eating up the bandwidth of, in daylight processing time while you're sitting in front of your computer doing whatever you're doing during your workday. It'll wait until you're off or during a schedule that you predict to back your stuff up. But guys, you. You got to be backing up. It's just a matter of time before you lose that either RAW file or worse yet, a final edit file that you just simply don't have another copy of. And perhaps you don't even have access to the. The mix down file project file. And so now what is the plan? You got to redo the whole thing. You bet your ass you are. Because you want the money, right?
- [04:03]
A
Yeah. So maybe we should talk about strategies and the processes that we personally use. So I'll share mine from not the recording side, but just the file management side. And I will just. I want to preface this with the fact that it's actually a little bit different for this particular show, because in this show, I'm using Mike's process a little bit. So for my computer, I keep all of my files on my hard drive, which I know people might disagree with, but I keep all of my in process files on my hard drive. My. But then I also have an external SSD where my production folder is synced automatically in real time, all the time. I also then have a. I'm on a Mac, and so I have my computer hard drive does an incremental backup every hour to an external spinning disk drive on my desk. And then I also have an archive folder from another spinning disk drive where I drop all of my archives after I finish. So I finish editing something, I drop the MP3 file into a folder on my spinning disk backup and then I also drop a zipped version of the session file. So I've got the original recordings, all of the in process, all of that goes there. And then that hard drive backs up every hour to Dropbox. So I have on my desk, I've got a local version, and then I've also got one remote, because maybe some of those that are listening don't know this, but if there's a fire in your house and your only backup's in your house, then you lose your only backup. And while I don't want to have a fire, that was actually something that was we dealt with a couple weeks ago. We had a kitchen fire that could have been really bad. It wasn't. And, man, we could talk about the story of that. But the fact is, I wouldn't have lost all of those archives, and I also wouldn't have lost all of the backups of my in process stuff, because all of those things are also backing up to Dropbox. Different than Carbonite. It's the process I use for Mike's show. The piece that's different is Mike uses some Google Drive stuff. And so I drop the final MP3 and the zipped files there, but that's my file backup. And you might look at me and go, dude, you're insane. That's crazy. But the fact is, if I'm dealing with somebody else's media, I need to make sure I've got copies of that stuff, because they may not. They pass it on to me. I'm responsible for it. I would argue they should probably keep a copy, but if they don't, I don't want to be the one that has to come to them and say, I'm sorry, I don't have a copy of it either. And if something catastrophic were ever to happen and they lost access to their show, I want to make sure I've got copies of those MP3s so they can get them back up. I don't have their show notes. That's their problem. But I can get them their MP3s, and I have copies of those session files. If we need to go back and change something, it's all right there. I mean, assuming the plugins still work and stuff. But that's my process. Mike, do you want to talk about yours? Because I think yours is even more involved. Yeah.
- [06:52]
B
And again, the first thing that comes to mind is that any machine that's running inside of my studio has Carbonite running on it. So whether it's my own work machine, which is the one that's in Front of us right now, any one of the laptops that are behind me, there's three and then there's a master server that also lives inside of this room that propels all the three giant monitors that are behind me on the video wall. All of those are linked up with Carbonite just as a start. That's where we're starting with so that anything captured on those systems now has a reciprocal off site backup so that I don't ever have to worry about it. The essence of Brian is talking about where I'm actually in a building where I'm sharing other offices with other people who likely might set the place on fire.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And so I don't want it to happen and same as anybody else, but if it does happen, I've got a stair step in the right direction I. E. The vast majority of the data that's inside of this room on any of the systems is not only backed up via whatever innate system there is. So if there's a backup, whether it's to automatically to Google or into the Microsoft verse via OneDrive, there's also a backup being done by Carbonite that's being done from all of these systems off site that I can access whenever I want, however I want based on the machine names. Ironically all the machine names are Star Trek characters. So. Haha.
- [08:11]
A
Nice.
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B
Yeah. So that's the first piece of backup. The second piece of backup is Brian mentioned. It is the Google Drive space that I've got. Typically the Google Drive space is where I'm throwing specifically designated files that I want someone to access. Like Brian is accessing the RAWs for the audio and the video for this either via streamyard which he also has access to that but imagine that they didn't. What I love about Google Drive is that very typically most people know something about the Google Verse online. And so it's, it's very ubiquitous and I don't usually have to instruct anybody on how to do anything. When there is the instance where I have to instruct somebody on how to do something, it's typically very straightforward. And again if they want to listen to the audio, I'm just providing them a link to the audio and they download it and then do whatever they want to with whatever program they have on their system, however they know how. Thankfully, especially over the years I've dealt with customers that don't typically like to get into any of their stuff. They just want to know that it's all backed up. So additionally on those Google Drives I'll also put the project archive, so that the customer has a literal backup of the project file that I used and did on the web inside of Google Verse, so that if they want to go and grab it, if they want to buy the programs and do whatever it is we're doing, they have all access to do that whenever however they want. Typically, they just don't want to. They don't want to get involved in anything like that. That's why they're hiring me.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And so I, I don't typically worry about that.
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A
I'm glad you brought that up. And it's a bit off topic, but I've worked with some people in the past or been involved with some people in the past that were very protective of their internal process, not wanting people to know what plugins were being used and all that stuff. And so for a while I was kind of like that. I'm like, I own the work in process. You own the final product when I give it to you. And now I'm kind of like, there's enough that's different every time that I do this, that if somebody just takes the plugins that I use. So what I mean, yeah, the largest
- [10:16]
B
piece of the chemistry set there is you.
- [10:19]
A
Yeah. It's the art, right?
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B
It is. You are totally an artist, especially as a podcast editor. There is a. There is a nuance that has kept me so many customers over the years because I am not your average editor. I've never claimed to be and I won't ever be your average editor. And that's why people come and get my service. It's just. It's the way it works.
- [10:39]
A
Yeah. The other thing I want to talk about, because we're talking about backups, and I referenced this at the beginning, but in my view, if you're not recording at least two copies, you're setting yourself up for failure. When you're. Especially when you're recording an interview or a panel or something like that. For client recordings, I would sometimes run three copies. So what we have going right now, if you're watching, you would know this. If you're listening, you may not. We're recording into Streamyard and Streamyard is recording this. And my understanding is Streamyard also has a backup process. So if something gets lost, we could potentially work with support and see what they can get us. It'd probably be lower quality, but Riverside does the same. Most services do the same. I'm also recording an audio only version right now because I've been burned in the past. I had a guest on my Original show, the engaging mission show, I had a guest on to talk about fundraising or something like that. It was a great guest. He's a leader who trains people how to do this particular kind of thing. And it was very great content. But I had gotten ahead of my production schedule and by the time I got to his, one of the recordings was gone. And unfortunately it was his side of the conversation. But because I only had one copy, there was no way to get back to that. And so at that point, one recording wasn't enough. So if I was recording at that point, I was using, I don't know, probably zencastr or Riverside or probably Squadcast. Actually, I was using one of those services that records itself. I was also recording a copy in software and then I was recording another copy locally to an SD drive. At the time I had a different system, but I was recording to an SD drive. So I had my remote recording plus their backup, plus my local recording, plus my local backup, because I did not trust this system. And while you don't have to be as crazy as I am in that, I would recommend, especially if you're going to have a guest on that you may not be able to get on again, have more than one recording, have two or three, because one backup may not be enough. And also, if you think this is going to be something that's going to happen, don't let your big name recording be the first time you try to do this. Do it every time so it becomes second nature so that you don't forget to hit the record button. And then if something happens, and we hope and pray that it doesn't, but if it does, you've got a backup. As a podcaster, as a content creator, if you can make a backup, make a backup, Make a backup recording.
- [13:10]
B
Yeah. I'm so glad that you mentioned well renowned guests as not being, especially not being the first point, but one of the most important points, not wanting to have to go back to somebody who is important and say, hey, do you mind if we do it again? Yeah, because that is disaster. Not only does it besmirch your reputation, but it instantly throws you as a content creator assistant into the fire as well. It's just, it's, it's a bad move. There's a program that we're recording now called the Crisis Cop over@crisis cop.com. it's the Crisis Cop podcast. We just had. Gary Nesner. Gary Nesner is the crisis negotiator that handled the Waco incident way back in the 90s and I mean, like, there's a guy we don't want to screw up on, right? Yeah. So that is exactly what we did where Brian's metaphorical three part system was in play. Because we do not want to go back to someone like Gary Nesner and go, hey, man. Whoops. Yeah, well, we don't ever want to play with something like that and we know that you guys don't want to either. And so we've got two things that we got to ask you to make sure you're going to succeed with this. The first one is hit the like button over here. Right, right over here in this section over here. If you're watching via video and if you're listening to this podcast, I need you to crack open a browser window quick. I need you to go over to podcastgauntlet.com you're going to fill out the quick web form. You're going to tell Brian and I all about the time you forgot to back up, right? Yeah. Fill out that quick web form and give us your story. We'll be sure to share that on an all fan input episode that we're conjuring for the podcast gauntlet. Again, that's over@podcastgauntlet.com. fill out the quick web form and let us know what you think. Brian, any last thoughts on backing up?
- [14:56]
A
Just. Just do it. Just make backups. Make up a lot. Make a lot of backups. Don't. Don't trust just one backup. Maybe don't even trust two.
- [15:06]
B
Yeah, and something else to remember too, guys. Backups cost money.
- [15:10]
A
They do.
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B
I know that. Every time we start talking about things inside the podcast verse that cost money, everybody loses their mind because there's got to surely be another tool or service that's for free. And there is. And they too will be out of business within two and a half years. So please stop it, shut up and pay some money to have your business function, for God's sake. And remember, podcast gauntlet.com tell us what you think about the time you guys forgot to back up. Join us next time where we're going to throw down, discuss. Rise and shine in podcasting. I'm Mike Wilkerson, one of your hosts.
- [15:45]
A
And I'm Brian Entsminger. Just wishing I would have backed that other one up, the other one of your hosts.
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B
Thanks for listening and for backing up. We'll see you next time.