Do you do off-site backups?

Dean

Well-Known Member
Hey everyone, I was reading a couple of articles earlier that were talking about how few people do off-site (not on your hosting) backups of their websites.

Personally I try to do off-site backups at least every week or two just in case their is an issue with my sites and the backups on my hosting have an issue. I learned from experience that having off-site backups are very important.

I am wondering how many of you do backups of your websites or blogs and download a copy to your own computers or use some kind of off-site backup service away from your hosting provider.

Do you do off-site backups?


Cheers, Dean.
 

ulterios

Well-Known Member
After having a bad experience (actually a couple) with a couple of EIG web hosting companies a while back, I learned just how important keeping backups of my sites somewhere else besides on a hosts servers was a REAL good idea.

I don't really have a schedule for doing them but I try to do them at least a couple of times per month. I download them to my computer and keep a copy there and on a separate backup device.

So there are always 3 copies of my backups, one on my hosting company's server (not an EIG company), one on my PC and one on my backup device. This system has been great and now I don't have to rely on just one source for my backups just in case something goes wrong. ;)
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
After having a bad experience (actually a couple) with a couple of EIG web hosting companies a while back, I learned just how important keeping backups of my sites somewhere else besides on a hosts servers was a REAL good idea.

I don't really have a schedule for doing them but I try to do them at least a couple of times per month. I download them to my computer and keep a copy there and on a separate backup device.

So there are always 3 copies of my backups, one on my hosting company's server (not an EIG company), one on my PC and one on my backup device. This system has been great and now I don't have to rely on just one source for my backups just in case something goes wrong. ;)
I also like to keep multiple copies of my backups just in case. I have one on my PC at home and one in cloud storage. Multiple sources is a good idea!

Cheers, Dean.
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
I do it on dropbox. Just the db file where as the sites are completely backed on my PC as they were built using it :p.
That was one of the services that I was thinking about using. How has it worked out for you and have you had any problems with the service at all?
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
No problems at all. Many of my WP based sites have plugin to backup their db to dropbox and it worked well.
I have seen those Wordpress plugins for those types of backups but I have never used them myself. I always wondered how well they worked so I didn't try them since I wasn't sure about them. I saw a couple to backup to Amazon also that I thought about.
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
I always do off-site backups, It's a good way to make sure your site stays popular!
I was asking about doing off-site backups of your data and/or your website. If you only do backups in your hosting control panel for example if something goes wrong on the hosting service end then you might lose all your data and website and have to rebuild it again.

If you store a copy of your data and/or website somewhere else also then that could save you the headache of possibly losing everything if something goes wrong on the hosting end and your data and/or website backups get damaged or lost.
 

Traveler

Active Member
In the past I always just do backups on the web hosting service. I think it is safer to do them there and to somewhere else too.
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
In the past I always just do backups on the web hosting service. I think it is safer to do them there and to somewhere else too.
Yes you will always want to have your backups in more than one location. I learned from experience and not from a good one.
 

DTS-NET

New Member
you're all very smart so many times we tell our customers to have off-site backups even though most hosting companies do back ups or have remote backup solutions
 

Traveler

Active Member
you're all very smart so many times we tell our customers to have off-site backups even though most hosting companies do back ups or have remote backup solutions
Do you send your new customers some kind of welcome email?

If you do then you can put something in that email that tells them about doing off-site backups and why it's important. Most people don't think they need them if their host does them or they do them in their control panel.
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
you're all very smart so many times we tell our customers to have off-site backups even though most hosting companies do back ups or have remote backup solutions
I myself learned the hard way. I had a website get corrupted and needed to delete all the data and files and install a backup but when I went looking for the backups the folders were there but no backup files inside them. I had to rebuild the site from the starting point and lost a lot.

After that I decided to always have 2 backups with one on my hosting for ease of reinstalling and one on my PC just in case the ones on the host had problems.
 

HostXNow

Member
You can never have too many backups!

It's good to duplicate the backups in as many different servers/data centres as possible to ensure you will never lose any important data.

TIP: never rely 100% on your provider for backups even if they claim they always guarantee to have them, etc. It isn't worth the risk.

It's easy to backup cPanel VPS/Dedicated server; just install cPremote on the VPS/Dedicated server and configure it (or get help from someone to configure it for you) so that backups are copied to the offsite server, i.e., hosted on a different server. Or even better, copy the data to a different datacentre altogether! Storing backups of your site on the same server that hosts your site is a terrible idea, and the reason for that is pretty clear.

Backup. Backup. Backup.
 

Catherine1

Active Member
I do backups not only on my web hosting but I also download them to my computer after reading how some people have lost everything when their hosting backups were gone or corrupt.
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
I do backups not only on my web hosting but I also download them to my computer after reading how some people have lost everything when their hosting backups were gone or corrupt.
That's good Catherine. Unfortunately I had to learn the hard way myself. Now I made sure that I have backups that are stored in several places just in case something gets damaged or lost in one place.
 

Dean

Well-Known Member
If we have backups being done on the softaculous app installer then isn't that good enough?
I am sorry to say that only having backups done if Softaculous is not good enough. Those backups are stored on your hosting and not separate from it.

It's best to have some stored somewhere else just in case something happens to your web server.
 

Maria Marketing

Active Member
I am sorry to say that only having backups done if Softaculous is not good enough. Those backups are stored on your hosting and not separate from it.

It's best to have some stored somewhere else just in case something happens to your web server.
Ok. I thought that the backups were stored somewhere else since they are done with softaculous. I guess I need to find something else to do for backups. Thanks
 
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