No one wants to lose hard work, time, or orders because of a technical problem with their server or computer, an accidental deletion, or because of malware, defacing, or hacking. One of the best ways to avoid data loss is to have a good backup system in place. But what goes into developing and implementing a good backup plan? What should you backup? How often should you take backups? Where should you keep your backups? How can you make sure your data and your valuable investment is protected?

What Should You Backup?

The simple answer is you should backup anything that you do not want to recreate or could not recreate easily. However, the longer answer has more to do with how your data is used, how it changes, and how often you need to back it up. The following are categories of data that most commonly need backups and general ideas of when they need to be backed up.

Configuration – Websites and servers are managed by various settings that control the way they behave. These settings are referred to as “configuration”. Typically, configurations do not change all that frequently and can probably be kept in weekly backups (although a fresh backup before any configuration change is also a good idea).
Website Files – Similar to configurations, most website files are fairly static, meaning that the primary content and structure of your website is unlikely to change too frequently (outside of new file uploads). You’d be annoyed if your favorite news site changed the entire look and feel of their website every day. While the content may change frequently, the site itself probably remains basically the same. Weekly full backups with daily incremental backups are probably a good fit for this type of data.
Databases – Data in databases is almost constantly changing. New posts on your blog, comments on your latest photos, and orders in your WooCommerce shop are all changes to your database. Because they change so frequently, any time between the last backup and a problem probably represents lost data. Ideally, databases should be backed up hourly, but daily backups may be enough in some situations. If you’re receiving multiple orders or updates per hour, you can’t afford to lose them due to an old backup.
Email – Much like databases, email data changes frequently. Regular, frequent backups of your email system will protect you from losing important conversations in the event of problem.
Whole System Backups – Combining all the previous categories together, along with operating system and application data, results in a whole system backup. This is the ultimate disaster recovery model when your entire server fails. A whole system backup can be used to create another server that will be an identical copy of the system from a time before the failure. The more frequent these backups are taken, the less time it will take to get your system back to full functionality after a major issue.

NOTE:

Full versus Incremental Backups – Full backups are a complete backup of the data set that is subject of the backup. Incremental backups only record the changes to the data since the last backup was run. Incremental backups allow for more frequent backups without using as much disk space as frequent full backups would use.

How Should You Backup Your Data?

Liquid Web offers a number of different backup solutions to help make your backup plan a reality. Some of these options are dependent on the kind of system you are using and may be used in combination with other options to provide a fully-functioning, broad scope disaster recovery plan for your server.

Fully-Managed Control Panel Backups (cPanel/Plesk)

All of the fully-managed VPS hosting, cloud hosting, and dedicated servers at Liquid Web include backup functionality via the Control Panel. These backups are generally configured to store the backups on the server, although they can normally be configured to store backups in other locations via FTP, S3, or SSH. Control Panel backups generally contain:

Website Configurations
Domain Files
Databases
Email (if hosted on the server)

Control Panel backups are perfect for non-disaster recovery situations. If you accidentally delete an email account, a single file, or even a whole domain, these backups can restore that missing data quickly and easily. Control Panel backups should be set up to back up at least daily and to retain 2 to 3 weeks worth of backups (normally full weekly backups with daily incremental backups). For more information on configuring control panel backups, see:

If these backups are hosted on directly on the server (which is the most common approach), how can you determine if you have enough space to hold all the backups that decide are needed? Basically, you just need to add up the amount of space taken by the home directories and databases and times that by the number of backups you want to keep. An even simpler method is to run one full backup to determine the size of a typical backup, then multiply by the number of full backups you want to retain.

If you have a traditional dedicated server, you probably have additional disk space on your server for storing backups. If you need more space, you can talk to our Solutions team about adding additional drive space. Cloud VPS servers can add additional space for backups via Cloud Block Storage, see Setting Up Cloud Block Storage or Adding Cloud Block Storage on a Windows Server.

Cloud VPS Backups and Images

Liquid Web’s Cloud platform provides three options for backing up your entire server: backup, images, and Acronis Backups. Cloud backups are regularly scheduled backups that take a full backup of your Cloud VPS and retain it off-server for full disaster recovery. Cloud images are on-demand snapshots of your Cloud VPS, helpful for reverting catastrophic changes to your server or for cloning your Cloud VPS for testing or additional deployment needs. Both Cloud Backups and Images are full server snapshots, so restoring from these sources is all or nothing. You are not able to restore individual files from these backup sources, only the entire server. If you’d like more flexible backups so that can restore individual files and folders, you should consider Acronis Backups (see below). Liquid Web recommends keeping at least 7 days of daily Cloud Backups. For more information on using Cloud Backups and Images, see Creating a Backup of Your Cloud VPS and Creating a Cloud VPS Image).

Acronis Backups

Traditional Dedicated Servers, VMware servers, and Cloud VPS and Cloud Dedicated servers can all be backed up with our fully supported Acronis Backup System. Acronis can store all of your server information in our data center or in a secure, off-site location and can be used for both whole server and individual file restoration. Our partnership with Acronis gives you full access to your backups through your Liquid Web Account. For more information about Acronis backups, see Ordering and Managing Acronis Backup Plans.

Liquid Web recommends combining quick, inexpensive (or even free!) on-server backup solutions like Control Panel backups or third-party backup systems with either Cloud Backups or Acronis backups for a complete backup plan. Local backups provide a quick, easy to use solution for reverting minor changes, while off-server backup systems protect you from catastrophic data loss situations. With a combination of these backup systems protecting your data, you won’t need to worry about losing your important information to a system failure.

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