Best Practices for Website Backups

Has this ever happened to you: you are working on your website, excited to introduce a brand new functionality that will revolutionize how customers interact with it, but that change ends up breaking everything. It is incredibly frustrating when that happens and unless you prepared beforehand you are in for a long night of troubleshooting. The preparation we mean are, of course, website backups.

You know that here, at FastComet, we strive to provide our customers with stellar services. From robust, stable servers, to enhanced security, and fast connection speeds. However, there is one more thing that we pride ourselves on and that is the backup functionalities our servers possess. We perfectly understand how important having backups is. However, it is equally important what kind the backup is and where it is stored. That is why we will tell you the best website backup practices in this blog post so you can rest assured your data is safe.

Why are Backups Vital?

Imagine the scenario we mentioned in our introduction. Imagine how time consuming and mentally draining it would be to have to troubleshoot some plugin you installed on your website that refuses to work properly. All of that headache, just because you did not have a backup of your website from before the plugin installation. That is why backups are vital. Not just for websites, but for any sort of work that involves potentially disruptive changes. Have a way to reverse those changes.

However, let us break it down even further, because there are many reasons why backups are so important nowadays.

• Data Loss Prevention – An up-to-date backup will guarantee you do not lose any crucial information in case of a disaster. Those come in many forms such as hardware or software malfunctions, cyber attacks, user errors and power interruptions to name a few. A backup is a safety net that ensures minimal or no data loss in case of an emergency;
• Uptime – We all know that uptime is one of the most important things for a website. If a website is not up it is missing out on traffic. Traffic is a website’s lifeblood. Without a proper backup it could be hours before a disaster-struck website comes back up;
• Recovery Plan – A website backup is a critical part in a disaster recovery plan. Without it it could take your IT specialists and website administrators a very long time to return the website to how it was prior to the emergency. As we mentioned above, downtime is not what you want for your website;
• Saving Time and Money – A solid website backup strategy will expedite the recovery process. Faster recovery means less time and money spent on the process;
• Competitive Edge – Any website can suffer an outage. However, those with a solid backup system in place will have the edge over their competitors who might lack the sufficient recovery capabilities;
• Peace of Mind – Finally, knowing that your website has the necessary backups in case of an emergency is a huge relief to everyone responsible. Not having to worry about your data’s integrity will make your IT team very happy.

As you can see for yourself, those are some very compelling reasons for a solid website backup strategy. If those are not compelling enough, though, here is what will happen if you suffer a catastrophic loss of data without a proper backup strategy in place.

1. Loss of Money – Having your IT team manually recover your data will incur additional costs. That can be due to the possible overtime or outsourcing they might have to do. Additionally, if you rely on your website for income, the downtime itself will prevent any revenue from coming in;
2. Waste of Time – Manually recovering from data loss can take a very long time. Time that can be better spent on other projects. Projects that can improve the functionality of your website, or speed it up for a better customer experience;
3. Loss of Trust – Customers will not trust a website that is down for an extended period of time. That is a fact. The reason is that there are simply other websites they can go to that are actually functional.

The bottom line is that website backups will reduce your website’s downtime. That in itself prevents an avalanche of other issues. Additionally, IT teams love it when they have all the proper tools to do their jobs.

Now that you know why backups are important, let us round out our knowledge of backups with a few other important factors about them. After that we will move on to the core of this blog post: our best practices for backing up your website.

Everything You Need to Know About Backups

Since we have managed to convince you backups are essential in our digital world, it is time we tell you about the types of backups that exist, as well as a few other crucial details. It is important to know these things because that will help understand what we will describe in the next section of this tutorial.

Firstly, there are generally three types of backups that are most commonly used online.

• Full Backup – This type creates a complete snapshot (copy) of the data designated for backing up. That means each piece of data is copied and stored away in a different location (local or otherwise). This backup takes up the most space, as you can imagine, and takes the longest to complete. It is fitting for initial backups or the occasional full snapshot;
• Incremental Backup – On the other hand, this one backs up only the data that has changed since the last backup (full or incremental). The process is much quicker and the storage space hit is much smaller than having multiple full backups. You might need to use multiple backups depending on the affected data, though;
• Differential Backup – Finally, the differential backup strikes a good balance between the other two. You still need to start with a full backup. After that only data that has changed since then will be saved. This saves on having to use multiple restore points, but space usage is more than incremental.

Here is a quick table to portray the differences between these three types in a more visual manner.t

Each of these backup types have their merits. It depends on your project, free space and restore policy to decide which to use. For example, a tiny, portfolio website can get away with full backups all the time. However, an e-commerce store with thousands of products and database entries should probably use an incremental or differential backup strategy to save on space. Which leads us to our next point.

We have already mentioned that backups take up space. That is no surprise, since it is–after all–data that has to be stored somewhere. Space is, most of the time, the biggest consideration one must make when choosing their backup strategy. It often dictates where their saved data will be stored. It can be locally, on the same machine as the website, or on an off-site (remote) server. A small website can perhaps afford to store backed up data locally. It is almost always out of the question for a larger website. A lack of space on the local device can slow down the website considerably, which is the biggest issue here.

So, with all of that said, you already probably realise that there are two types of backups when it comes to location: local and off-site. Depending on the frequency of backups and the size of your website you might want to consider an off-site storage to give your site breathing space. That is especially true for websites on a Shared Hosting server.

For that exact reason we have chosen to provide all our customers on our Shared Hosting environments with off-site backups. We understand how valuable space can be on those servers. Those backups, however, are not only remote, but they are also all our customers can ever need for their websites.

To be fair, that was the whole reason we wanted to write this blog post. We see people installing all sorts of third-party software to back up their websites. That is unnecessary since they have all they could ever need already available to them. That leads us to the main section of this blog post.

Best Practices for Website Backups

Now that you know why backups are important and the different types, it is time we discuss the best practices for backing up your website. Fortunately, everything is straightforward. Here at FastComet we have the perfect tools to keep our customers’ data backed up and safe.

As we mentioned earlier, our Shared Hosting servers offer off-site backups as part of each hosting plan. That is possible due to our partnership with JetBackup who have been an indispensable part of our hosting solutions. Through JetBackup and its seamless integration in cPanel we are capable of offering our customers not only remote and secured storage for their backed up data, but also a straightforward way to restore that data. The existence of JetBackup on our servers is why we wanted to write this blog post in the first place. We want to educate everyone reading it that you do not need anything else than JetBackup.

However, while we want to stress the importance and efficiency of JetBackup, we also want this blog post to be informative for everyone not using it. With that in mind, here is our list of best practices for website backups. If you follow it, you should have no issues.

1. Automate Backups – Starting from the top, automated backups will ensure your data is never lost due to someone forgetting to run the backup. The way JetBackup works on our services is it backs up your data once per day. Not only that, it keeps up to seven snapshots of your data (30 for our FastCloud Extra users), so you can roll back from any of those points;
2. Backup More Than Just Files – Whenever “data” is mentioned, users typically think of “files” and that is not entirely wrong. Most data is files. However, there are other things that are important to back up. A website’s database is oftentimes vital to its proper functionality, so do not forget to back that up. Same goes for anything else that your website needs to work. Fortunately for you, JetBackup backs up not only your hosting plan’s files, but also all databases and a few other useful things;
3. Use Incremental Backups – In our opinion, the best backups are the incremental ones. No matter the website, backing up only the data that has changed since the last backup not only saves on a lot of space, but it is also very quick to restore from. As you can imagine, JetBackup does exactly that, taking snapshots of the data that has changed since the last one, instead of always running full backups. That makes the backup process itself incredibly quick, ensuring none of your data is caught unsaved between backups;
4. Use Different Backup Locations – As the famous idiom goes: “Never put all your eggs in one basket.” The same sentiment goes here. You should have at least two different locations where you store your backups. JetBackup already has you covered by being off-site. So, we recommend you always keep a separate full backup in a different location. That can be your local computer or in a cloud like Google Drive. You can check out our tutorial on how to manually back up your website’s files and database. We recommend you do it at least once a week, unless your website is extremely static and unchanging;
5. Scale According to Your Website – The size of the website you are backing up matters a lot when deciding how often and how many backups to keep. If you are not our customer and do not have access to JetBackup, create your backup strategy depending on the size of your website. For a small, static website that does not change often, you can back it up only a couple of times a week, for example. A big website, though, with many moving parts, should be backed up once a day or even multiple times throughout the day. Fortunately for our Shared Hosting customers those two things are not an issue no matter the size due to JetBackup: it will save your website and keep multiple snapshots of it, despite its size;
6. Do NOT Use Third-party Backup Extensions – This is the only “don’t” on our list, and it is a vital one. We see many of our customers using plugins, extensions or modules that back up their websites locally, to their hosting account’s storage. There are several downsides to that, however:

• That backup takes up your hosting account’s space. Space that your website can use to grow instead;
• With JetBackup already in place (or whichever automated, off-site backup service you might have) you do not need yet another automated backup solution. It will only slow things down: it slows down the speed of your website while generating, slows down the generation of the JetBackup plugin, and can even slow down your website as a whole. It is unnecessary overkill. That is especially true on a Shared Hosting environment where space and server resources are not infinite;
• Such software can outright break a website. Whether it is a WordPress plugin, a Magento module or anything else, you run the risk of bricking your website. Sometimes they simply do not work with the specific type of website you have. Why risk it, when JetBackup already saves your data?

There you have it. Our best practices for website backups. To sum them up: use an automated, off-site backup solution as your first storage location that will capture everything your website needs to function. We recommend incremental backups. Then, manually backup that data at least once a week to a different location. If you want to be even more thorough, have a third location as well. Finally, avoid third-party plugins or extensions that have the potential of slowing down your website. Of course, if the only way to backup your data is to use a WordPress plugin, for example, then by all means.

You might have noticed we talked a lot about our Shared Hosting, but did not mention our VPS and Dedicated CPU servers. They have their own backup functionality, however, it is not off-site so it will take up the server’s space. The backups system is, naturally, configurable so you can choose which days it will run and the type of backup it will produce: compressed (in the form of an archive), uncompressed, or incremental. And while it is an adequate solution for the short-term, we strongly recommend purchasing a JetBackup license for your VPS or Dedicated CPU server. The least it will do is free up all that space the local backups are taking. It will also offload the resource requirement for generating the backup to JetBackup’s servers. Visit our Marketplace to find the license and upgrade your private server.

Finally, to round out this blog post, it would be a huge misstep to not mention our JetBackup tutorial. We have already linked bits of it in this post, however, head to it if you would like to learn more about JetBackup and how easy it is to work with. Not to mention all the time and effort it saves!

We Have Your Back(Up)!

Backups are vital to the healthy operation of any website. No matter if it is a simple one-page portfolio or a massive online shop. Loss of data is never fun to deal with, so back it up!

It is our joy at FastComet to be able to provide our customers with a solution that does the backing up for them without any impact to the performance of their website or hosting solution. Whether it is through us and JetBackup or through other means, following our best practices for website backups should give you a solid foundation to preserve your data in case of an emergency. Do not be one of those people who thinks “It will not happen to me.” You never know! Be prepared!