13120: I Wanted To Know The “Time Machine” Of Windows Is, So Of Course, I Had To Ask Leo

Raw transcript:

I’m a Mac guy uh I use Macintosh as my
basic platform for all the Computing
things that I do all my editing all my
audiobook work all my voice over work my
own camera work everything revolves
around Macintosh I have a passing
familiarity with Windows used it for a
time in the 90s in the early 2000s also
Unix but Mac is my go-to platform
so much so that I protect my Macintosh
with a very intricate backup procedure
and sometimes my clients use Windows and
they say so that backup thing that you
do on the Mac what what do you do for
Windows
and I always mention my buddy Leo
notenboom well I got a chance to talk to
Leo today and I’m gonna show you what he
says about what to use for backing up on
this episode of the vo Heroes podcast
[Music]
Leo notenboom everybody uh you have
heard me talk about him because as you
know I do everything I do on Mac Leo
used to work for some big company up in
Seattle that had something to do with
windows I don’t know it was called
Microsoft or something and I often
mention Leo because
he and I I don’t know if you were the
one that instilled the fear of God in Me
or it was just the event that occurred
the night of December 31st 1999 going
into 2000 when my entire system got
killed by a by a power sag
um oh really I did not hear about that
yeah yeah and that changed my religious
nature about about backing up
um but Leo is always the guy that I say
hey I use time machine built into
Macintosh my buddy Leo who I’ve known
for decades and
uh I I know knows what he’s talking
about because he’s got the askleo
website and the askleo newsletter and
the the askleo video channel on YouTube
and all this stuff if you don’t know who
Leo is and you work with uh windows and
PCs you should know who Leo is uh and so
I’m thrilled that I was able to get him
just to talk real quickly about the
equivalent go-to software uh for Windows
as opposed to time machine so we’ll get
that from him but just want to back up a
little bit
um your approach
to backing up has influenced my approach
to backing up and when I share my my
approach to backing up with people they
kind of they kind of look at me like a
dog looks at a at an odd sound that you
make on The Tick Tock videos you know
how do you deal with the notion that
some people don’t find it as important
to back up as we do
honestly everybody eventually finds out
how important it is right you’ve either
had a disaster or you will have a
disaster and the question is whether or
not you’re going to be prepared for that
um be it you know whatever happened to
you on December the 31st it happens to
us all at one point or another and
eventually once that happens people
start being very very interested in
making sure that the next time it
happens it’s not nearly as costly in
terms of time or data loss or whatever
it is that it turned out to be
so I’ve stopped trying to convince
people
and rather I’m just saying hey this is
what you want to do you want to be
prepared for it because trust me it will
happen and what’s worse it’ll happen
without warning and it’s preventable
right it’s not like oh you’re going to
suffer if you if you uh if this happens
to you and there’s really no way of
telling uh if you’ll be able to recover
but there actually is technology on many
levels that can help protect you against
this and I think some people think oh
well I just copy my good stuff to from
my you know my documents folder onto an
external drive or up to a cloud thing
well how how much worse could it
possibly be
and then I love how you giggle about
this yes I giggle because I hear the
stories right all the time right it’s
one of those it’s one of the recurring
themes to folks asking questions over at
ask Leo
um and yes it does happen now to be
honest and to be completely fair you
know what if you’re copying your data
files or whatever to an external hard
drive or just doing something
you’re actually better off than a vast
majority of people already right you’re
doing something you at least recognize
the importance it’ll cover you from some
kinds of issues but unfortunately not
necessarily some of the more costly ones
yeah so something is better than nothing
but what Leo and I have been sort of
maneuvered into understanding is that
not having to worry about it not having
to remember to move what you think is
important from your documents folder
your my documents folder onto an
external drive just not having to think
about it
uh makes all the difference in the world
so let’s get to the good stuff
um so one thing I will tell you I am
honestly I tend to be fairly jealous of
the Mac crowd and I say that when it
comes to backup backing up because time
machine it’s just there you plug in a
drive you turn it on I mean I’ve got
I’ve used Macs I’ve used PCS all sorts
of stuff but the bottom line is that
it’s one of the most
almost elegant Solutions at least from
an ease of use point of view you plug in
the drive you turn it on you stop
worrying right it just it kind of does
what it does
on the window side things are
significantly less elegant
there is a backup program actually built
into Windows has been for many versions
Microsoft actually says yeah don’t use
it I mean literally they have
um announced like a couple of versions
ago that the backup program that’s built
into Windows is deprecated and you
should be using a third-party solution
so what is wait hold on what does
deprecated mean for people that don’t
know
um it’s no longer encouraged it is about
it will at some point be removed from
the product they’re not supporting it
anymore got it okay so
um being deprecated keep going what what
do you do instead
so I do I I call it a multi-layered
approach I start with a third-party
program I happen to use macrium reflect
that’s the tool that I use right now
um and what it does is it does a
complete backup of the entire hard disk
every bit of information that’s on the
hard disk is actually the written to a
file on one of my external drives what
that protects me from is hard disk
failure so if without warning which is
very common my hard disk decides that no
I’m done then I can replace the hard
drive restore the image backup and I’m
back to where I was I mean it’s
literally that conceptually simple yeah
just to be clear when you say the phrase
it prevents
uh my heart I don’t I forget you just
said it five seconds ago and senior
moment you said something that intimated
that macarium reflect would prevent your
hard drive from crashing no no no no no
no no not at all I understand that yeah
yeah hard disks absolutely fail
um and it’s one of the things that I
think a lot of people get lulled into a
sense of complacency because they get a
new machine and it starts working and it
keeps working and they have no reason to
believe that it won’t keep working
forever yeah you get lulled into a sense
of of complacency and false confidence
right yep exactly and the brutal honesty
the brutal truth about all this is that
your hard disk and other components in
your computer but specifically when it
comes to your data we care about the
hard disk any hard disk can fail at any
time completely irrecoverably and
without any warning whatsoever
so that should scare people if they
don’t have something in place to protect
themselves from that kind of situation
and that’s why I encourage the use of
what’s called an image backup program
that actually images or takes a copy of
every bit of data that’s on the hard
disk now I happen to run mine every
night automation is important it’s one
of those things that I don’t want to
have to think about
and by doing so then yeah whenever my
hard disk when not if my hard disk fails
I’m ready to replace it and do whatever
so you say you run it every night what
you mean is it runs automatically every
night correct correct yep I have it
configured to run I think it’s like one
or two o’clock in the morning I happen
to be one of those people that leaves my
machine on 24 hours a day you don’t have
to right you can configure it to run at
a time that’s convenient for you or when
you turn on the machine or you can also
configure it to run automatically at the
end of the day and then turn the machine
off for you when it’s done but all those
kinds of what matters more is not
necessarily the details of the
automation but the fact that it is in
fact happening without your having to
put any thought into the into the
process now one of the reasons I really
like macrium reflect as a solution is
that there’s one what I would call a
killer feature one of the things that
we’ve all been hearing a lot about in
recent years of course is ransomware
ransomware comes in it encrypts
everything on your hard disk or at least
some significant portion the important
stuff on your hard disk and holds it for
ransom if you don’t pay the ransom you
don’t get your data back there are
variants of ransomware that will
actually go out to your external hard
disk look for backups and encrypt those
too so that the fact that you’ve got a
backup doesn’t really help in that
situation now the knee-jerk reaction for
a lot of folks is to say okay I’ll
unplug my external hard drive when I’m
not backing up the problem is you’ve
just broken your automation right you
have to remember to plug in your hard
drive in order to make the backup happen
I guarantee you you’ll forget yeah
instead of remembering to back up or
remembering to copy your files now
you’ve just got to remember something
else and that’s something else is
something that you can forget exactly
yeah so what reflect has done which I
really appreciate is they have this
thing called I think it’s called image
guard and what they’ve done is they’ve
actually used Windows File permissions
to completely lock down the image files
that they create I can’t delete them not
outside of macro and reflect I can’t
edit them I can’t move them and of
course I can’t encrypt them what that
means though is that neither Canal wear
right neither can ransomware when it
comes in so you can still manipulate the
data the backups all you want as long as
you’re running it in macro and reflect
outside of there there’s no chance so
your backups are protected that to me is
kind of like the killer feature for this
specific product now there are other
products out there I also use and
recommend esis to do same kind of
product a different user interface might
be a little bit easier to use might not
be a little bit easier to use reflect is
out of the UK Isis is out of China that
might be an issue for some folks and
there are other Solutions out there as
well but I’ve put a lot of time and
energy into really getting macrame
reflect configured and running on my
system it’s actually targeted probably a
little bit more heavily towards the
business user but that means that the
product is to my thinking Rock Solid and
potentially not necessarily as easy to
use which if you don’t mind my saying is
why I’ve got a class on Acura reflect um
that I’ve put together at the end of
last year so there are lots of resources
out there to understand how to use the
program and use it well yeah it’s a
really inexpensive class it’s less than
sixty dollars uh Leo’s been kind enough
to give me a coupon code you’ll see that
in the show notes for this interview
below the the video and
um it’s detailed enough of a process
just like time machine is setting up
encryption setting up uh whether you
want it to do it automatically how to
handle multiple uh disks in a rotation
set which is what I do I don’t know if I
you still do that but uh I’m I’m sure
that you’re not relying on just one disk
because that could fail too so
um the the notion of having a class to
do backup might seem like again a little
Overkill but there are Parts about this
and tell me if you agree or disagree
about this
you don’t back up just to protect hard
drives from their inevitable failure
you’re also backing up specifically
for as quickly as possible being able to
recover and get back to work I think
people forget when they go yeah I’ll
just uh you know all the voice over
people and actors that watch this video
they’ll be like I just I’m I’m putting
my auditions my my audiobook work my my
video stuff it’s not that big of a deal
but it is when you have to
get a new computer right uh replace the
data that was on that computer the data
that you don’t even know about the
settings in applications the fonts that
you’ve downloaded over the years the the
utilities that you forgot you use on an
automatic basis that you never put over
to your external drive all of these
things take time to recover from and so
the the sort of currency here is not
just your data but your time in getting
back to where you were before your hard
drive crashed would you agree or
disagree with that absolutely yeah this
is all about time restoring something
from a backup is significantly faster
than rebuilding your machine from
scratch which is what you just described
reinstalling Windows reinstalling all
your applications for Brick storing all
your data assuming that you’ve got it
from somewhere the other thing I wanted
to point out is we’ve talked about hard
disk failure being the cause of a lot of
this kind of stuff but there are other
scenarios that are obvious that are
just as uh have just as much benefit
from a backup for example let’s say
through some magical reason I got
malware on my machine right I got a
virus of some sort on my machine
now I can try to remove it and hope that
the removal worked or
I can just restore to last night’s
backup before the malware arrived and
poof by definition it’s completely gone
and hopefully at that point I know not
to do whatever it was that brought the
malware on my machine in the first place
but the bottom line is it’s a fast way
to recover from several different types
of disasters or an inadvertent button
click on yeah take me to the next
version of the operating system for my
computer you know I I’ve seen so many
people like I just got so sick and tired
of Apple nudging me to go to Ventura or
whatever and so I did but now this isn’t
working well if you had a backup
you could restore right back to when you
were at some version of the operating
system prior to what you inadvertently
did so there’s all of these scenarios
and again for my students you know we’re
doing professional voice over work we’re
doing professional acting work
um we tend to be kind of hat in hand
artists in our Garrett eating gruel and
struggling and not really paying much
attention to the importance of the work
that we do and so when you said earlier
you know it’s it’s sort of geared
towards a business user I want to make
sure that people that are watching this
video know that I’m doing this video
because we are business users this is a
business
so don’t think that macrium which I’m
assuming is fairly inexpensive I mean I
know time machine is free macrame used
to have a free version but they don’t
anymore what’s going on the free version
went away which is really unfortunate
because it was a good
um entryway for people to understand how
the product worked I believe the home
edition is around like 40 50 bucks
something like that they’ve got some
package deals and honestly even though
we’re talking about business the home
edition is really all you need they’ve
got Enterprise editions for huge
corporations and so forth that’s way
overkill for anything you and I or your
class would need to do but for just your
machine doing your work in your home on
the home edition is is quite literally
exactly what you need okay so Leo
notenboom
askleo.com or is it ask hyphenleo.com
please clarify for me it’s askleo.com I
did purchase the domain from this water
some years ago all right all right so
askleo.com if you’re on YouTube you can
look up his videos there he has a
newsletter that is fascinating
to me I don’t even use Windows and it’s
fascinating to me because the concepts
that he talks about are Concepts that
really cross over multiple platforms uh
how we use our computers rather than the
actual operating system that we’re using
and the the course on using macrium
reflect uh you know I know Leo I’ve
known him for a long time it’s going to
be great and you can use the code that
you see on the screen or you can find
Below in the show notes to get 30 off
which I really appreciate that thank you
very much and by the way if if you use
if you take the course and you’ve got
any questions I mean I there’s contact
information all over it
if you heard about it here let me know
I’ll give you that little extra David
Lawrence touch wow interesting thank you
so much Leo note and boom uh long time
friend so nice seeing you thank you so
much for helping to fill in this Gap I
want to make sure everybody’s protected
and that the fear of whatever God you
you fear is putting you about backing up
and making sure that you’re protected on
that there is as Leo said two types of
people in the world those who have cried
tears over a hard drive failure or an
inadvertent OS update and didn’t have a
backup and those that will shed a tear
if they don’t have a backup thank you so
much and we will talk to you soon my
pleasure David take care Leo notenboom
he is just fantastic we love him uh I’ve
known him for a long time trust him if
you want to understand exactly how to
protect yourself as a professional as a
business person in the world of
performance go check out his course it’s
really cheap you’ll get something that
will save your butt I swear to you if
you’re a Windows user he’s a guy to uh
to be uh Reliant upon again all the
links are in the show notes below
um if you liked what you saw today uh
and you have comments on it let us know
uh in the comments below if you want to
share this with people just grab the URL
and pass it on to somebody who uses
windows that you think might benefit
from this kind of information you can
subscribe to the channel you can like
this episode if you want to you can hit
the notification Bell for when we do new
episodes of this I really appreciate you
uh you taking the time to do that I’m
David H Lawrence the 17th I thank you so
much for watching and for listening and
I will see you in the next episode of
the vo Heroes podcast
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