How often do you backup and by what method?

[Asia_Expat]

A recent hosting debacle has brought into sharp focus for me the importance of backing up your server. You will cringe when I tell you thins, but at the time of the server failure, I had not backed up for months.

However, I have an excuse (I know there is no real excuse for not backing up)... I am living in rural parts of Southeast Asia and connections speeds can be terrible. I don't make use of third party backup services, nor do I use those offered by my host (perhaps I should under the circumstances)... I always backup with WinSCP to my local machine (when I can stand to wait 30 hours for it to complete ate super low speeds).

I got away with it this time and the server is back up just as it was before the downtime... but it was 18 hours of stress while I waited to see if the data would come back. What are the options if you're in the middle of nowhere (and happy about that) but have a very slow connection. How long will you leave your backup before you start to feel vulnerable?

[edited by: Asia_Expat at 7:17 pm (utc) on Mar. 26, 2008]

[physics]

Asia_Expat, given your slow connection you might indeed consider using your hosts or other 3rd party backup software. Another option, however, would be to use rsync, which would only copy files that have been changed. You'd have to install Cygwin on your windows box (or get a linux box for this purpose) but you might just sleep better at night ;)