Backing up Wordpress

(I hope this is the right section for this topic)

[voodoochild16]

Hey all,
I have a decent sized Wordpress blog, that is hosted on it's own domain. I am wondering what my best method would be to back it up. Should I back all my files like once a month, and the database once a week?.

The thing is that the size is over 1GB because of photos and other files taking up so much space. I plan on working on it alot more with creating alot more content. I want to make 100% sure that I have a backup plan incase something happens.

I kind of have the basics down on how to restore a wordpress blog but I am still the one that would be calling the host to ask for assistance with it. What should I start using and what more should I learn from here?, thanks in advance.

[caran1]

Use the export option in Wordpress to take a backup, it is fairly simple.

[voodoochild16]

Should I rely on XML though?. Or should I backup my database and XML file?.

[Lexur]

Use a plugin called backWPup that will do everything for you. Daily!
It allows you to:
- clean and save your database
- select the folders you want to back-up; this is very important because you can save in your computer the uploads/2012, 2011, etc. folders and just update the current year
- upload the .zip file to an account in Dropbox automatically, leave the six last bacups and delete the seventh to have a full set of seven copies

Once you setup this system, you only need to care about to download the backup file from time to time to your computer and check the integrity of the database and the files installing it on a new blog in your computer or server.

Hope it helps.

[voodoochild16]

Hey Lexur, I actually have used that plugin. I tried using the Dropbox feature but it never successfully transfered the backed up database.

I guess I could save my database file to my hdd then drag it into Drop box but.. i have lots of space on my hdd.

What do you do to back up your blog?. Just the database?, or the database and everything periodically?.

P.S. I have also used the other options for BackWPup, Amazon S3, Sugarsync, and FTP worked the best, though I wanted to backup my stuff on a different FTP server than my main one and I didn't have one that was capable of handling more than 5GB's.

[lorax]

Doesn't your host do regular backups?

Personally, I always have a copy of the files on my local computer. The data base gets backed up before I do an update or test something that might be sketchy. I don't worry about the database other than that because I know my host has a weekly backup available should I need it.

If you want a more frequent backup then you could use an SaaS backup. Do the initial backup in pieces until you've got all of the files on the backup host/cloud.

[PioSyd]

Some of the hosts offer back up some don't. I wouldn't relay on hosting provider. I would prefer to back up all my sites. The way how to do it will depend on your website and server type. I have cPanel where I can export all the database content and then I use FTP to copy all the files. How often it depends on the website. If you do not have new content one back up is enough if you have hundreds of products or comments or articles it should be done daily. It shouldn't take too long and it is not that difficult.

[jpch]

I use VaultPress as a backup even though my host does backups as well. If your site is important enough to backup it's probably worth the $0.50/day for the ease and peace of mind of using VaultPress.

[Hoople]

Free options exist as well:

Wordpress Backup (by BTE) - Backup the upload directory (images), current theme directory, and plugins directory to a zip file. Zip files optionally sent to email. (By Blog Traffic Exchange)

WordPress Database Backup - On-demand backup of the WordPress database. (By Austin Matzko)

[Lexur]

I use bacWPup with a paid account in Dropbox and I know the backup system becomes useless when your blog reaches a nice size (a daily backup of more than 500 Mb is quite unmanageable) so you need to select the exclusion tool and let out, i.e., the 2012 and previous years files. Just download it save it in a HD.

[mvander]

If your host allows ssh, I've found the best method is using plink to script a mysqldump and then use ncftpget to download it. Seems to cause the least disruption of server resources.