Backing up a website

[DavidRobinson]

Any good ideas on backing up websites?

I have a website that is mostly WordPress with a few pages outside the wordpress directory.

My host has CPanel and I am able to use CPanel to backup the files (but not the MySQL database)

How do you backup your own sites and how do you keep the backups organized?

Thanks for any ideas.

David

[IanTraynor]

Hello David

With static websites, there's no problem. You should already have a copy of the website on your local computer. Those are the files that you work on and upload to your server via FTP.

But of course, as with all the important files on your computer, you should have a system which regularly backs up your files. I use a remote backup service, which costs me about 50 GBP per month for 30 Gb of storage. Expensive, I know, but my business depends on these files.

With Wordpress, where the content is created on the web server, I manually download the PHP files via FTP.

Backing up the database via cPanel should be fairly simple. In the Databases section of your cPanel, select "phpMyAdmin", which normally opens in a new browser window. Then, select, on the left hand side, which database you want to back up. Then select "Export", scroll down and tick the "Save as file" button and hit "Go" (you can usually leave all the other options as their defaults). This will then open the normal browser "save file" option to choose the folder where you want to save it to.

I hope this helps.

Regards

[DavidRobinson]

Thanks Ian. I appreciate the response. So, do I overwrite the previous backup, or do I just keep archiving them?

[Delton]

If you know you are through with the old backup you may as well overwrite it. Like Ian says you should have your files on your PC and should be backing it, your PC, up regularly.

I worry about backing up my PC more than I do my site on the hosting service.

[IanTraynor]

Hi folks

Like Delton, I normally only keep the latest backup on my PC, knowing that it's going to be backed up remotely each night.

It depends on how "mission critical" your data is. My mailing list, for example, is my most valuable assett. I'm all "belt and braces"with that backup

But yes, backing up your PC's data is the most vital element. Most reliable webhosting companies backup all their clients' files on a daily basis.

It depends on how much you trust your hosting company.

I know that the guys behind my reseller company, http://www.Hosting4Marketing.com, are bang on when it comes to reliability and security

Hope this helps.

Regards