My Cheap & Easy Backup Workflow For Filmmakers

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

SSDS I RECOMMEND

Music licensing sites I recommend:

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.

[MrTerryRay]

This is awesome Matt. This is clean, simple, and achievable. No expensive NAS system or RAIDs. I'm an IT guy that recognizes that sometimes simple is better because it's achievable and can be easily adapted into a workflow.

[dna]

To anyone reading this: take backing up to multiple sources more seriously than anything else you do. I've had two drives fail in 2 years after never experiencing a harddrive failure in 20 years prior. Shit happens. Assume that it will and be prepared. You'll thank yourself later instead of paying $2000+ for data recovery that may not even be successful.

[JonathanPalfrey]

Great advise Matt, I think too many Youtubers have incorrectly promoted NAS drives to their audience who really don't need something so complicated and expensive, this is a much more sensible way to back up.

Only other thing I'd add is I prefer to use smaller drives (mostly 4TB) as if a hard drive does fail its far less data that needs to be recovered and backed up from the other drive than say if a 14TB drive fails. We also dedicated pairs of drives to different clients which works as a good way of physically managing old projects.

[digwillhachi]

I used to do it this way but buying a NAS is so much better and more convenient. I use back blaze and pcloud for cloud backups.

[SethDunlap]

I have a label maker and I put labels on my drives, so I don't have to plug in random drives to find certain footage. It saves a TON of time :) MISS U PAPI

[PolluxChung]

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.

[Sid]

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.

[dadverb]

Great tips right here. I've been too lazy to organize and correct my workflow. Might need to make that a priority during my limited break for the holidays.

[RyanHarville]

I was JUST about to ask how you sync all your files across all the harddrives and then you answered it. This video made my day. Thanks Matt!

[HiFocusedCinematography]

This is so much better of a system. Ive had Raids in the past die and also get corrupted files. They are expensive too. One SSD plus two WD drives is the way to go and most reliable I think.

[AmandaKam]

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

[ismatec]

Oh man, you are a meticulous and precise as me! I thought I was the only maniac acting the same ways with file storage and more when it comes to professional work. 👍🏻. I learnt my lesson when I a HDD stop working and I didn't backup months of video and photo files to the 2nd hdd. now I have 4! 2 plugged in, 1 stored, and an online back up.
Great tutorials, i am big fan. Take care. Isma

[xmiguelx]

Great video! Matt by any chance do you have a video of how you organize your files (folder structure/file names etc)? If not can you make it be the PART 3 to this series please?! 🙌🏼

[jeffbushphotovideo]

I’ve done this similarly for years with 2 drives as backup and work off SSD’s….BUT instead of just keeping a drive unplugged and in the other room I also use a fireproof safe and pray that the fire station half a mile from my house can have the flame out in less than like the 6-8 hours the safe is rated for.

[justicewonder]

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!

[TableauTim]

The western didgital drives have a feature called Raid 1 which does the job of copying your file across two separate physical internal drives so an 8 TB drive becomes 4 with the data always being duplicated across two HDDs.

[eb]

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.:)

[MattSpaugh]

Great stuff. I use a similar system. When I do multiple day shoots, I copy everything from that day onto a drive and leave that drive on-site. If I get hit by a bus, the customer still has the footage I've captured. The drive I leave on site is a Adata SE800. It's insanely fast, is waterproof, crushproof and tiny. A 1TB drive can usually be had for around $100! Keep up the great work. Lastly, what's the paint color on that wall behind you? It's the bomb!

[madisonave]

Thank you for making this so simple and straightforward!

[williamdlc]

I do the same workflow, but I used Bvckup on my Windows PC to backup! We all can't afford NAS systems like LTT so this is the best I can do.