Congrats, you just lost two copies. Learn a real backup plan

As I record this, I'm very happy that all the files that I use to make this so the music that's going to start here in a second, and everything else is where it's supposed to be, because the hard drive that those files are on is being very flaky.So today we're going to talk about avoiding a headache that's definitely coming in the future.It's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when.

Welcome to your podcast consultant.Small lessons with big value.With more than a decade of experience and millions of downloads, this hall of fame podcaster is a featured speaker, author, and mentor to thousands.Now he wants to work with you.He's your podcast consultant, Dave Jackson.

All right, first things first.Remember, for 15 years, I taught computers in the business world a lot of Microsoft Office and QuickBooks, but I did a lot of, like, welcome to computers, where I talked about hard drives and RAM and things like this.But let's first talk about what is a backup?A backup is when you have two different, like, versions or two different locations really is the big thing.Copies of your original file.Because some people like, oh, I have it on my hard drive.That's the C drive, but I also have it on an external drive.That's drive F. Great.Your house catches on fire, your computer burns.Congratulations.You just lost two copies of your podcast.And so what I do, because after you have, you know, my case, I have over probably 3,000 episodes.Those start to take up a little room on your hard drive.And so I have an external hard drive, and then I use a service called Backblaze, which backs up all of the files on my computer, including my external usb.But for me, that wasn't enough.I don't know why, but I use a thing called iDrive.I actually bought it because I used to have a Mac and a PC, and I used it to basically kind of put files in the cloud where I could get them.It was a huge amount of space, and if I remember right, it was cheaper than Dropbox.But here's what happened.I have a.They call it a solid state hard drive.Four terabytes, tons of space, unless you're doing video.And about once a day, it would just disconnect from my computer.So I tried a new cable.Wasn't the cable, it's the hard drive.And so when I finally got it to reconnect, the first thing I did was make sure that it was backed up in a different location.So in this case, I backed it up to iDrive.It was probably already on Backblaze, but the thing I hate to hear is that you don't have any backup.And what to back up is up to you.I used to save every the way I had it.I have one folder called Podcasts, that's for all of my shows.And so this show has a folder called your podcast consultant, because that's the name of the show.And then I would have a folder called Production, which had my intro music and such.It would have a folder called Episodes.And so every episode would then have another episode.So if it was episode three, inside the episodes folder would be, you know, this 003 folder.And then I had another folder called Finished.And so I would basically open up my Hindenburg, which you can save as a template.So all my files are there.I record it like I'm doing now.And when I'm done and I've edited and I have it just the way I want it, I export it to finished.And so this is episode number 259.And I will save it in my finished folder.And in the past, I would keep all those folders just in case I ever wanted to go back and recreate episode number, you know, 126.And I'm here to tell you, in the 20 plus years I've been doing this, I've never done that, ever.Now I should say I might keep it for a week, because there are times when somebody goes, hey, do you know there's like 10 seconds of blank space in your episode?And you go, what?And it's nice to go back and fix it, but if it's been longer than a week, then in my opinion, you could get rid of all those extra files and just keep the finished one.I have seen many people working at Libsyn and now at PodPage, and of course, members of the school of podcasting that have lost everything.Now, keep in mind that let's say you published a Captivate or Buzzsprout or Blueberry or whatever.If you can listen to all of your episodes online, you haven't lost them, you just lost all the files you used to make them, which isn't really, you know, that important.You can always recreate that stuff and you can always.There are tools, there are ways you can go to your website and download those and keep a copy for yourself for sentimental value, whatever it is.I'm just saying it's not a true backup until you have two copies.And eventually, eventually your hard drive is going to fail.So in my Case it was a four terabyte hard drive and it didn't break because I had too much stuff on it.It was only halfway full.But it's probably.I'd have to go back and look.I bought it from Amazon and I would say it's been probably four years, which isn't really that long.I'm kind of disappointed.But it's hardware and hardware will always fail eventually.Your car will eventually stop, your dishwasher will eventually stop.It's all hardware.And so that's why I have Backblaze and I'll have links to that.By the way, I have an affiliate link for that.That is a great product because every file on your hard drive it can update.And what's great about it, if you think about it, if you're using Audacity, you don't need to backup Audacity.You can download that software anytime and just reinstall it on your computer.You don't need to backup Audacity, you just need to back up the files that you create.So any Word Documents or Excel or your podcast or things like that.But I just want to remind you, if you haven't backed up your podcast in a while, you might want to just in case.Same thing for your newsletter every now and then.It's not a bad idea to export your list just in case something weird happens, because that's really one of your biggest assets is your email list.The beautiful thing about your email list is there is no algorithm there.Yes, there are things where you have to get people to open your email, but when you click send, it's going to end up in their email list unless you did something really stupid and make it look spammy.But I just want to remind you that if you want to make sure you always have a copy of your podcast, make sure you have a backup, maybe one that's on your computer or an external hard drive that's in your dwelling, whatever it is, apartment or house or whatever.And then make sure you have one online.I'll put links to everything out@podcastconsultant.com 259.If you need help with your podcast, you know where to reach me.Simply go over to schoolofpodcasting.com and use the coupon code Listener when you sign up for either a monthly, quarterly or yearly subscription.And of course that comes with a 30 day money back guarantee.Because I'm Dave Jackson, I help podcasters.It's what I've been doing for over 20 years and I can't wait to see what we're going to do together, because I want to be your podcast consultant.