My Cheap & Easy Backup Workflow For Filmmakers
❗ Hard drives I recommend: https://kit.co/whoismatt/backup-editing-drives
Here is my cheap and easy backup workflow that I use for storing and editing many terabytes of 4K video footage! With a few hard drives, you’ll have much greater peace of mind and be protected from data loss in the event of a hard drive failure.
HARD DRIVES I RECOMMEND
8TB on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3q2pVJp
8TB at B&H: https://bhpho.to/3IVmmNH
8TB at Best Buy: https://bestbuy.7tiv.net/QO0ALA
10TB on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3sb9dKt
10TB at B&H: https://bhpho.to/3GOGsaz
12TB on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3pZOM0x
12TB at B&H: https://bhpho.to/323btce
12TB at Best Buy: https://bestbuy.7tiv.net/kjV9EN
SSDS I RECOMMEND
Samsung T7 at Amazon: https://amzn.to/320E69O
Samsung T7 at B&H: https://bhpho.to/3F7JiXR
Samsung T7 at Best Buy: https://bestbuy.7tiv.net/b35PJx
Sandisk Extreme Pro V2 at Amazon: https://amzn.to/3sjGu6e
Sandisk Extreme Pro V2 at B&H: https://bhpho.to/3E66Via
Download FreeFileSync: https://freefilesync.org/
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0:00 All hard drives I recommend linked below
0:56 Storage Hard Drives
2:54 Editing Hard Drives
4:20 How to sync files between all your hard drives
5:07 Bonus tip!
I’m required to state that I’m a part of affiliate programs for Amazon, B&H, Best Buy, SoundStripe, ArtList, Musicbed, and Adobe and that some of the links above are affiliate links.
Once again 🙏 I got 2 seagate. Sorry not wd and then the T7 💪 I follow a lot of youtubers/filmmakers, but honestly your advices are for me always in the top 3, your reviews/advices/shares, have done that my purchases have been so accurate, and I am the type of guy that before buying something I need to assure that what I buy is the best according to my budget. Honestly 🙏🙏🙏 MIL GRACIAS
After copying would you clear the original memory data?
Smart move on the 3rd ssd drive, using it as the workhorse. Get the speeds without having to pay the at times exuberant price for larger capacity and have the slower large capacity HDD just for storage; makes so much sense!
Two questions:
1. With the concept of 3 backups, 2 onsite, 1 offsite, I’ve seen tons of people use a Synology NAS in raid something. I’m not networking expert, but with the whole concept of raid being that data is mirrored on two or more drives so that if one fails, you can replace it and the other will keep the data safe, would one NAS count for the 2 onsite backups?
2. Eventually the physical drives onsite will run out of space, so you’ll need to store them in an archive. I’m not only working on personal projects, but I do the sermon recordings for our church, so those physical drives will fill up after a few years. Do you eventually consider something so far in the past it’s not worth it to keep the data on the physical drives anymore, or what do you do when you’ve got several boxes of physical drives to store?
Are you have also the files on you internal ssd? or just on the two large external hard drives?
I have a question: I am planning on getting a mac studio and do not want to upgrade the storage from 512GB (costs too much). My plan is to get a high speed external SSD Drive. Is editing on an external SSD bad or should I invest in a high storage model to edit with the internal ssd?
I love the simplicity and very practical way to go about backing up work. Is this a Direct Attached Storage method using 2 desktop drives? Is there a benefit to backing this way over using, say a dual slot DAS enclosure?
the data on a hard drive is only good for 5 years, at best. You should mention this.
Great video! Super helpful. Do you keep your photos and video projects separate? I just bought a new drive so I was wondering if there’s an advantage for keeping them separate. I’ve kept my raw footage and photos together since I often shoot both on the same day. What would you recommend? Thanks!
Hi Matt, could you explain what do yo do with the "bad files". It’s usual to me to erase some of the photos or video I took after delivering the work, this photos and videos I think would be useful. So, my question is, if I do that on my SSD, on my selectin workflow, how I erase them from the two backups? That’s the thing I’m allways struggling with.
Thanks <3
For backups I use bare hard drives with a dual hot-swap HDD dock. To me this is a much cleaner solution than buying external HDDs. No need to worry about all those clumsy AC adapters of every single drive when your archive library is getting bigger with more hard drives.
Awesome video! I too share a similar system. I have three 2TB hard drives with all the same data on them, and everyday I manually backup files to each drive one at a time. I also use FreeFileSync as well when needed when syncing files from my computer to my hard drive. I only have one hard drive plugged in at a time when doing a backup, just in case I were to get a virus or have data become encrypted mid-backup 🙂
When you edit with SSD, do you mean keep footages in SSD or just the project file? If I want to only keep either footage/ project in the fastest drive, which should I choose to keep, so that I can edit and render faster?
DONT BUY SAMSUNG T7 !! is so slow for complex ssd 🙂
Can free file sync work over the internet to the 2nd drive connected to a second computer
thanks Matt!🙏🏼 Just as always, straightforward. I love it😮💨 take care🤙🏽
Very helpful for learning how to store my art tutorials. Thank you.
Thanks Matt. Reluctantly, I was all set to purchase a RAID system. They seem incredibly complicated, especially for someone like myself who knows such little about programming and such. I think I’ll do this instead. I appreciate the video!
Thanks so much Matt! Looking into this as I type! Question – which others may find helpful? Or I’m the only one haha! Let’s say you’ve copied all the files to the WD and then completed the project on the SSD. Would you then transfer the Final Cut Library and all exported videos to the WD (as audio/video files are already on there) and delete the library and files from the SSD? If you need to go back and make edits or do another cut, would you then have to copy the library and files (and relink) back to the SSD? Sorry it’s long, hope that makes sense! Tom 🙂
Thanks for the post. I do this with a local drive, external SSD too and cloud. My current local drive is standard externally powered HDD which seems pretty fast. I’ve been wrestling with SSD for all drives or just the working drive.
Thank you for making this so simple and straightforward!
In 15 years, i have had two (2) WD drives (local backups) die on me. I will not buy WD anymore.
My 3rd backup I take with me when I’m working, so if my house burns down or some pos break in and steals all my stuff. I have all of the work with me . I have NEVER heard anyone say "Ii wish I didn’t have so may backups
What about backing up folders for long-term proejcts? Some project folders get populated with multiple new files over time, such as After Effects renders, MOGRT’s, updated design files, stock footage / music, etc. I’m guessing you need to do frequent backups just like you do for project files, I just haven’t figured out how to frequently backup these huge proejct folders without creating entirely new copies of the folder every time. There has to be a more streamlined method. Thanks!
Great video dude. One question, can I use all of these suggestions with my high powered lap top? Because that is what I use for editing. 🤔
This is definitely the perfect workflow!! I was doing this but with ONE backup instead of two and dropped the backup 🙂 so didn’t lose any current projects but a lot of old stuff… will be doing this from now on and looking into online too! Thanks as always for your guidance
Hey! Im kind of new to the PC space and I’m really confused with these 2 SSD’s (Samsung 2TB 860 EVO and 870 EVO) I’m looking to buy one for internal storage and video editing but I’m not sure what to get I can’t seem to understand the difference btw them and the price btw the 2 makes it even more confusing as the 860 is more expensive than the 870 (not sure if this is a supply and demand thing or if there is a legitimate reason for the 860 being more expensive) can anyone help. By the way what is the MSRP on these
Here are the questions that I don’t have an answer to.
Why in the world am I keeping old work files for videos that sit on YouTube that I will never edit again? With everything from graphics, ATEM Mini Pro ISO, Rodecaster Pro, and the DAW recordings, these are 50GB folders.
Should I keep only one copy of the final MP4, one copy of the final audio MP3, the final graphics, and nothing else, which keeps it at about 4GB
What are other YouTubers keeping in a backup archive?
Great idea! I’ve been stuck for months trying to fig
Matt, I grabbed an 8TB Western Digital Drive through your link. Using the Apple USBC to USB adapter and going direct from my Samsung T5 to the WD drive, it takes about 1 hour to transfer 1TB worth of data. Does this seem slow to you?
Question! I am editing a 3-minute video using PROXIES (original files are 4k 10-bit 150mbps, if it matters). I don’t have an external SSD for editing, leaving me with two options:
1. Editing from my internal disk on macbook air 2020 M1 (8gb RAM), on which there is only about 200GB free space.
2. Editing from my external hard drive, which is not SSD and therefore not so fast.
What would you recommend? Thanks a lot in advance! 🙂
Funny – never saw your video but I am using the same method! Works so far… but Its really a pain all the time 😛
Great video Matt! I have a MacBook pro with a 1tb internal SSD. Would you recommend editing directly from that instead of an external ssd and then transferring to a slower HD for storage after? Thanks
Do you still use this method? Unfortunately just had WD hard drive fail, and I am wondering if I should invest in something more $$$ ugh. Luckily I had everything in Backblaze and the other WD (per your recommendation) but I am wondering if investing in a G-technology or something similar would be worth it.
Awesome as always very helpful !! I’ve been editing for about a year and you have really helped through my journey ! From fx30 settings to which Mac to buy , which program to edit on and now what to save my work on thanks !!
Bad buys. 4tb for $70 after taxes. Wd blue. Don’t need to keep in computer. But it’s smarter to. Don’t buy more than 4TB unless already in raid
Is the western digital drive just a drive that you plug into your computer then drag your files right on? Or is it something like a NAS drive that connects to a whole system?
😁Here are the hard drives I recommend: https://kit.co/whoismatt/backup-editing-drives
P.S. Like the colors in this video? Get my easy color presets here: https://whoismatt.com/luts
Look into DAS options from other vendors, I had a WD My Home Cloud that died on me, not good experience
Has anyone else found that Western Digital HDs are unreliable? I’ve lost 3 drives from them in 2 years. I have a small budget. So just bought a bunch of SDD from Sandisk and backed up the rest online.
Is there other manufacturers you’d recommend that are more reliable?
Why don’t you actually show a demonstration of what you do… Talk talk talk got me so confused…..
Im not a film maker but thus workflow is useful for me since im trying to avoid upgrading on cloud space. I hate the idea of paying for storage space the rest of my life
this guy is a lib for sure.
I’ve been told this method is risky because if one of your source files gets corrupted it will sync the corrupted files to your backup drives. Does anyone know how to get around this risk?
Super helpful video! Thank you for making it!
I’ve decided to use Backblaze & FreeFileSync, however even after the initial sync …FreeFileSync seems to take hours and hours to update. I thought (or hoped) after my initial backup, FreeFileSync would mirror super fast. I’m mirroring an external HD 500GB on 8 TB over a network to another 8TB HD on the computer getting backed up via Backblaze. Any thoughts? Does it just take this long or am I doing something wrong?
Are you going to get the $69.95 month new iCloud?
Do you recommend the Samsung t7 1tb for backup photos and videos? I’m not a content creator, just an average user want to free up my iphone storage
"Film / maker?" So let me get this right. First I digitize the cellulose, right? Oh, no cellulose? But you said . . . Wait what is it you make again?
Thank you for the video! You can also backup all the data in a safer way by using a monitored backup system. Probably the best one is Silverstack – but also expensive. The program I use the most is Davinci Resolve. There you can find even in the free version an option to backup all the data at the same time and with a backup protocol, even in the free version.:)
Do you still follow what you explained in this video? it is 2 years old. Just wondering if you have the same flow and recommendation. thanks