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Part of the appeal for YouTube is that there's no storage limit or associated costs. I've spoken to YouTubers who started off keeping backups but quickly reali

Part of the appeal for YouTube is that there's no storage limit or associated costs. I've spoken to YouTubers who started off keeping backups but quickly realized it was nowhere near cost effective for them to do so. And even if you do pay enough to keep those backups around, there's no way to back up the links themselves. For some videos it doesn't matter whether you reupload them or not, if it's not available at the original link it might as well still be dead.

nerdponx 8y ago
Backblaze B2 is $0.005 / GB / month [0]. 1 TB of backup is $5 / month. Downloads are $0.01 / GB, so a one-time recovery of 1 TB is $10. How much raw content (in GB) does a typical Youtube content creator actually have? [0]: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html
- reificator 8y ago
  I don't know the numbers exactly, but I can look at one in particular. Looks like an average of 7 videos a day at 30-60 minutes each and 60fps/1080p. That's for the last year or two at least, and overall they've been doing this for the last 8-9 years. Oh, and 4 weekly 3 hour vods exported to YouTube for archival, should be approximately the same quality settings.
  - GuiA 8y ago
    > 7 videos a day at 30-60 minutes each I think you're looking at a very extreme end of the spectrum here. Is this channel a large company focused on pushing out content? Because I have a hard time imagining how an independent creator can churn out an average of 5 hours of video a day, every day, for years on end - unless they're just wearing a GoPro and streaming their daily life. Most YouTubers I follow seem to post a 10-20 minutes video a few times a week, and even that probably counts as very active. E.g. PewDiePie, likely the most successful creator on Youtube at the moment, posts a ~15 minute video every day.
    - reificator 8y ago
      It is a one man channel, though there are collaborative videos on a regular basis, each posted on all respective participants' channels. He does have a manager for non video production workloads, (sponsorships mostly) but otherwise yes, that is how much content is released daily. He's definitely the highest volume of the ones I've heard that statement from, but not by as large a margin as you might think. Also on top of that he does appear in some of his wife's videos without uploading to his own channel in an attempt to build her audience as well. EDIT: And no, it is not a go-pro lifestyle channel. It's just a dude putting in approximately 10 hours of work a day every day. He takes vacations a few times a year but otherwise is just constantly working and putting out content. He has also started taking off Saturdays and shuffling work around to fit that, so it might be longer than 10 hours now.
CaliforniaKarl 8y ago
What about sending a copy of the finished video to archive.org, and (once you've gotten enough episodes/videos uploaded) applying to have you own Collection? (see https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360016399952-Collections-A-Basic-Guide- https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360016399952-Coll...) > …if it's not available at the original link it might as well still be dead. True, I can believe that, and this doesn't help that.
cr0sh 8y ago
> I've spoken to YouTubers who started off keeping backups but quickly realized it was nowhere near cost effective for them to do so. Because 1 TB drives are expensive? I realize that wasn't always the case (look, I'm old enough to remember when a 5 MB hard drive cost close to $10k for a personal computer system) - but I still think it's a bad excuse. If the data is important enough to put up for others, then it's important enough to back up (even if only the edited and compressed version). Today, it makes no sense at all not to keep a backup. Even using DropBox or Google Drive is plenty cheap. Your other points do stand, however.
- mchristen 8y ago
  Some of the creators on Youtube are recording in RAW 8K footage. A few 1TB drives will not make a dent in their capacity needs.
  - snovv_crash 8y ago
    You don't need to back up all of the source material. The final product is good enough for most cases.
  - plorkyeran 8y ago
    You can't download the source file from youtube, so if redownloading from youtube is good enough then you clearly don't need to back up the source file either.
  - sandworm101 8y ago
    Fools and their money. If your only product is uploads to youtube, 8k is massive overkill. 4k is overkill. For the vast majority of content, even 1080p is overkill. Spend that money on microphones and editing equipment.
    - jdboyd 8y ago
      Lighting and sound are definitely more important. Under many circumstances a good sounding well lit 720 (or even 480) video is better than an average 1080 video. That does mean that 1080 or 4k is overkill though. Especial if the content includes a lot of detail shots or text.
dawnerd 8y ago
Cheap option is a new gsuite account and take advantage of the unlimited storage. Even assuming they start enforcing the five user minimum it’s still a great price. But the key is to use an account that’s not tied in any way to the account used on YouTube. It does seem some you tubers are starting to do this. Only annoying thing is there’s a 750gig upload cap per day.
- reificator 8y ago
  The main failure mode for a YouTube channel is being locked out of your Google account. And Google have been known to lockout associated accounts as well. Storing your YouTube backups with a Google account definitely does not count as an off site backup.
  - dawnerd 8y ago
    Google isn't going to shut down a gsuite account you are part of because your youtube account was closed. If you're that worried, pay the 100 bucks or so for an LLC, setup gsuite under that name and well that's about it. Never said it counted as an off site backup either, just that it's a good solution to dump video too.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - tinus_hn 8y ago
      If a conflict arises Google will just close the entire account and you lose access to everything connected to it. People have lost their gmail address, play store account etc.
      - dawnerd 8y ago
        So you’re trying to say if an employee of a company has their personal account deleted google will take down the company gsuite? Please.

nerdponx 8y ago

Backblaze B2 is $0.005 / GB / month [0]. 1 TB of backup is $5 / month. Downloads are $0.01 / GB, so a one-time recovery of 1 TB is $10. How much raw content (in GB) does a typical Youtube content creator actually have? [0]: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html

reificator 8y ago
I don't know the numbers exactly, but I can look at one in particular. Looks like an average of 7 videos a day at 30-60 minutes each and 60fps/1080p. That's for the last year or two at least, and overall they've been doing this for the last 8-9 years. Oh, and 4 weekly 3 hour vods exported to YouTube for archival, should be approximately the same quality settings.
- GuiA 8y ago
  > 7 videos a day at 30-60 minutes each I think you're looking at a very extreme end of the spectrum here. Is this channel a large company focused on pushing out content? Because I have a hard time imagining how an independent creator can churn out an average of 5 hours of video a day, every day, for years on end - unless they're just wearing a GoPro and streaming their daily life. Most YouTubers I follow seem to post a 10-20 minutes video a few times a week, and even that probably counts as very active. E.g. PewDiePie, likely the most successful creator on Youtube at the moment, posts a ~15 minute video every day.
  - reificator 8y ago
    It is a one man channel, though there are collaborative videos on a regular basis, each posted on all respective participants' channels. He does have a manager for non video production workloads, (sponsorships mostly) but otherwise yes, that is how much content is released daily. He's definitely the highest volume of the ones I've heard that statement from, but not by as large a margin as you might think. Also on top of that he does appear in some of his wife's videos without uploading to his own channel in an attempt to build her audience as well. EDIT: And no, it is not a go-pro lifestyle channel. It's just a dude putting in approximately 10 hours of work a day every day. He takes vacations a few times a year but otherwise is just constantly working and putting out content. He has also started taking off Saturdays and shuffling work around to fit that, so it might be longer than 10 hours now.

CaliforniaKarl 8y ago

What about sending a copy of the finished video to archive.org, and (once you've gotten enough episodes/videos uploaded) applying to have you own Collection? (see https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360016399952-Collections-A-Basic-Guide- https://help.archive.org/hc/en-us/articles/360016399952-Coll...) > …if it's not available at the original link it might as well still be dead. True, I can believe that, and this doesn't help that.

cr0sh 8y ago

> I've spoken to YouTubers who started off keeping backups but quickly realized it was nowhere near cost effective for them to do so. Because 1 TB drives are expensive? I realize that wasn't always the case (look, I'm old enough to remember when a 5 MB hard drive cost close to $10k for a personal computer system) - but I still think it's a bad excuse. If the data is important enough to put up for others, then it's important enough to back up (even if only the edited and compressed version). Today, it makes no sense at all not to keep a backup. Even using DropBox or Google Drive is plenty cheap. Your other points do stand, however.

mchristen 8y ago
Some of the creators on Youtube are recording in RAW 8K footage. A few 1TB drives will not make a dent in their capacity needs.
- snovv_crash 8y ago
  You don't need to back up all of the source material. The final product is good enough for most cases.
- plorkyeran 8y ago
  You can't download the source file from youtube, so if redownloading from youtube is good enough then you clearly don't need to back up the source file either.
- sandworm101 8y ago
  Fools and their money. If your only product is uploads to youtube, 8k is massive overkill. 4k is overkill. For the vast majority of content, even 1080p is overkill. Spend that money on microphones and editing equipment.
  - jdboyd 8y ago
    Lighting and sound are definitely more important. Under many circumstances a good sounding well lit 720 (or even 480) video is better than an average 1080 video. That does mean that 1080 or 4k is overkill though. Especial if the content includes a lot of detail shots or text.

dawnerd 8y ago

Cheap option is a new gsuite account and take advantage of the unlimited storage. Even assuming they start enforcing the five user minimum it’s still a great price. But the key is to use an account that’s not tied in any way to the account used on YouTube. It does seem some you tubers are starting to do this. Only annoying thing is there’s a 750gig upload cap per day.

reificator 8y ago
The main failure mode for a YouTube channel is being locked out of your Google account. And Google have been known to lockout associated accounts as well. Storing your YouTube backups with a Google account definitely does not count as an off site backup.
- dawnerd 8y ago
  Google isn't going to shut down a gsuite account you are part of because your youtube account was closed. If you're that worried, pay the 100 bucks or so for an LLC, setup gsuite under that name and well that's about it. Never said it counted as an off site backup either, just that it's a good solution to dump video too.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - tinus_hn 8y ago
    If a conflict arises Google will just close the entire account and you lose access to everything connected to it. People have lost their gmail address, play store account etc.
    - dawnerd 8y ago
      So you’re trying to say if an employee of a company has their personal account deleted google will take down the company gsuite? Please.