Backups 101

BikeGremlin · 2022-11-13T04:57:22+00:00

Yes, it is a pretentious title. 🙂 If you've been working with computers, you probably already know this - better than you would have liked. However, in my e...

Amadex

Amazing article, thanks for this.

evnix

Good one, I wrote a blog post around how backups are hard, just 4 days before this one and has almost the same idea,

One thing I would add to this is to have a backup plan too,

what happens if my server goes offline - what are the steps, who will do it and how long will it take?
Also people don't backup small things like DNS records, SSH keys etc which could be long and painful to re-setup everything from scratch.

BikeGremlin

evnix
Very good points.
DNS records don’t change very often, take next to zero space to store, but I don’t think anyone bothers to back those up (Cloudflare for one offers a neat export option -with a good reason).

Edit:
And yes - a plan for when, not if a server goes down. Especially if I’m doing the management lol 🙂

ehab

I learned something i didn't think before:

"backup copy for each of the last three months"

I think i will review this.

Thanks for the article.

BikeGremlin

ehab

Yup. Hopefully you'll never need to reach for the old(er) backup copies, but if you need to, you'll be glad for having saved them.

MDDHosting (BikeGremlin site link) has that in their regular customer backup policy (7 daily, 4 weekly, 3 monthly backups).

I save one monthly backup copy for the last 12 months, but that might just be overdoing it. 🙂

Amadex

BikeGremlin hostingforums.net has two backups every day and they are kept for 30 days.

BikeGremlin

Amadex

And I'll download and store the monthly ones - just in case.

evnix

Chris They weren't actually storing them due to costs

I haven't really had any luck with hosts and backups,
and when it worked, the backups wouldn't be compatible with the new web host.

BikeGremlin And I'll download and store the monthly ones

Yeah I am exactly the same! Having a copy of my backup on my local computer somehow makes me feel safe, even though it might not be the most reliable medium 😆

Chris

You can never have too many backups! I always push the idea of testing backups on clients and being proactive rather than reactive to maintaining their ability to run their business!

We recently had a client who moved their second business to us, they prepared, backed up and went to download the file..... turns out backups were a facade at their old host and they wasted a day trying to work out the cause! They weren't actually storing them due to costs (I know)

What I tend to do, is rolling backups as standard daily. However I often have the same question posed to me - "How often should I backup" My answer is always how much work do you want if and when it all burns to the ground?

We have one client with hourly (only 3 backups saved at a time) then 12 hour cycle saved for a month and others that have asked if we can be cheaper if we don't backup - its the wild West with clients 😆

BikeGremlin

evnix

Providers whose services I'm currently using use JetBackup, and allow me to do basically one-click restores to their backups. I test it on a regular basis to confirm it (still) works. Like a charm. MDDhosting (my review link) does it every 4 hours on their Plaid platform.

However, I always make sure to have my own set of backups (which I also test to confirm they are usable) - just in case. Having an (encrypted) copy on one's own computer is always a good idea - I use a Western Digital "My Book" 8TB external drive (Amazon affiliate link) for that.

< Joker mode >

Unfortunately, Hetzner has made their data centre an easy target for areal strikes (didn't Germans learn anything over the past decades?!):

Ts...ts...ts... disclosing the location and making it impossible to miss... amateurs!

That's why I'll see with @Amadex if I could rent his storage - built as a backup storage should be (undisclosed location somewhere in the Solar system):

</ Joker mode>

@Chris
For the "wild-west" clients: 🙂

evnix

BikeGremlin Hetzner has made their data centre an easy target for areal strikes

These guys! From the looks of it Hetzner will soon take over europe 😆

BikeGremlin

evnix

Not if they wait until June to enter the Russian market...

🙂