subject: WordPress Backup Solutions - What to Look For [print this page] WordPress Backup Solutions - What to Look For
Sure you can do it manually, but with WP there is a plugin for everything, including backups, and you can even just set and forget it and have your blog backup automatically. Just one more reason to love WordPress.
I might not backup everything else, but with my plugin I thought I knew how to backup WordPress and do it automatically... EXCEPT... recently I got a shock.
All my back-up work was going to waste!
I was backing up the WORDS on this WP blog, but NOTHING ELSE.
What I didn't know is that WordPress has two different parts it needs to restore from a backup. There is the database, and there is also the site contents. Who knew? Well, not me, that's for sure.
Basically doing only a WordPress database backup was taking a huge risk that only the WP database would be lost, not the whole site.
If my site had gone down all my backups would have given me all my posts, but left me with a plain vanilla blog I would have had to rebuild and retweak from scratch.
Hours upon hours of work to do.
Scary, scary stuff.
So of course I figured I had just got the wrong plugin. There must be an alternative but perfect solution WordPress backup plugin? Surely?
I went hunting, and horribly enough, no plugin is perfect!
It would be lovely if I could just name THE solution, but it's more complicated and takes more explanation than I can go into here.
There is no complete winner, but I found some solutions that will work.
Here was my checklist for the very best WordPress backup plugin possible. It would...
Backup the entire blog, meaning the database AND the site itself (not just one or other)
Run automatic scheduled backups as well as immediate ones (VITAL),
Be stable and keep updated with the latest WP versions.
Have support from the author and/or a good forum (very important when you come to restoring your precious site and run into the inevitable techie-type problems.)
Require as little technical expertise and tweaking as possible. No setting up cron jobs, changing to 777, or FTPing, please.
Backup somewhere other than on the site, so that if the site goes down your backup isn't taken with it.
Not cost anything.
Even though nothing came out perfect, on my blog I cover the 3 best solutions for your WordPress backup (especially the free ones.)
