How I archive podcast episodes [daily podcasting photo #8]

DVD-Rs for podcast archives I produce a lot of podcast content each week: about 45 minutes of clean-comedy, 45 minutes of podcasting how-tos, and almost 2 hours of Once Upon a Time. Since I record in four-channel, uncompressed WAV, process my audio, and keep my master files, this generates up to 5 GB of data per week.

In the image-editing world of Photoshop, the most offensive word is “flatten,” which is removing all ability to tweak previous edits. I feel the same way about my audio. I keep my original, raw recordings, as well as my master project file. The only thing I don't keep is my temporary WAV export that I convert to MP3 with iTunes.

This fills up my hard drive very quickly. So instead of deleting these old projects once the podcast episode is uploaded, I have a digital-packrat in my brain that tells me to keep the stuff “just in case.”

So I burn previous episodes to DVD-Rs. This photo is a spindle of about 80 such archive discs, going as far back at the Ramen Noodle #36.

You might think an external hard drive would be cheaper. But let's do the math:

Speaking of which, I should probably order another spindle. This last Verbatim DVD-R 100-Disc spindle has lasted for more than a year.


Today's podcasting photo is made possible by HostGator affiliate. Host a single website or unlimited websites, unlimited bandwidth, and unlimited storage for as low as $3.96 per month! Start your unlimited hosting today!

This is a post from the “daily podcasting photo” series. Learn more about the series, including how you can sponsor a day, at Daniel J. Lewis's personal blog.

About the Author
As an award-winning podcaster, Daniel J. Lewis gives you the guts and teaches you the tools to launch and improve your own podcasts for sharing your passions and finding success. Daniel creates resources for podcasters, such as the SEO for Podcasters and Zoom H6 for Podcasters courses, the Social Subscribe & Follow Icons plugin for WordPress, the My Podcast Reviews global-review aggregator, and the Podcasters' Society membership for podcasters. As a recognized authority and influencer in the podcasting industry, Daniel speaks on podcasting and hosts his own podcast about how to podcast. Daniel's other podcasts, a clean-comedy podcast, and the #1 unofficial podcast for ABC's hit drama Once Upon a Time, have also been nominated for multiple awards. Daniel and his son live near Cincinnati.
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Ryan Rampersad
11 years ago

The DVD solution works for long term low access storage, like a backup that’s being held offsite. If you actually were planning on using those files, for example, as an end of the year special compilation, you would probably end preferring the external drive since that would be so much easier to sort through and use.

Keeper Dan
Keeper Dan
11 years ago

Thanks for the tip. I’ve been trying to get a handle on just which files
were the optimal ones to back up to disc so I can get some hard drive
space back.

Has that brand been consistently reliable for you? I tend to get a
little nervous about discs that are so inexpensive, especially if I
remove the files from my PC after backing them up.

Dave
Dave
11 years ago

Hi, I just wanted to correct you on your math, because I have been thinking about buying more discs vs. an external drive for data storage.

4.7GB discs x 100 discs in a spindle = 470GB, not 4TB. Since 1000GB = 1TB, a 100-disc spindle would give you less than half a TB of storage. It’s still cheaper than a 1TB external drive (which could fail on you one day) but not as dramatic as is written above. Hope this helps!

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