dedicated server running cpanel/whm- best way to backup?

[disgust]

should I use the whm backup features, or do something more "direct"? I've got an FTP account where I'll be uploading things to.

also, is there any downside with incrimental backups instead of full ones?

how complicated is it to restore a backup?

[ddent]

My favourite backup technique is rdiff-backup for the whole drive. The only problem is that if for example your hard drive crashes, and you are using dedicated servers, your hosting company is going to restore some OS load for you. Then the trick is knowing how to get the data back on the server - its slightly tricky :).

Also don't forget to have dumps run of your SQL DBs and copy the dumps rather than the db files (or shut down your db server while you run your backups but I doubt you want to do that).