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I’ve got a dedicated server with GoDaddy, and have been pretty happy with things. I know how important backups are, but don’t like how GoDaddy handles it.
First, you have to set it up yourself, which is OK if you know what you’re doing in Plesk, but Plesk backups SUCK. You can’t extract a single file from them, or get the SQL commands to rebuild part the database.
Furthermore, Plesk restorations SUCK. Plesk removes the current (live) site, then attempts the restore. Oh, and if the restore fails? Sorry – you have nothing now. Talk about back-asswards.
The final nail in the coffin is the fact that you can ONLY access the GoDaddy backup FTP server from your main server. So if your main server fails, don’t worry: you have a backup – you just can’t get to it.
After all that, I decided to write my own backup script. If you want to do something right, you have to do it yourself.
I started with a basic script that saved the files an FTP server, which was a good first step. But I couldn’t find a cheap FTP server for backups, so I looked at Amazon S3. While the pricing is a bit confusing, I know it’s cheap. It looks like I can backup my entire server, daily, for about $0.02 / day. You’re not going to find a better deal than that!
Enough already! Here’s the script. It’s completely free, and probably has more comments than actual code in it. Just PLEASE don’t ask for support on this one – get a sys. admin if you need help configuring it. Or figure it out with trial & error.
Storing your data in “the cloud” can be dangerous if you don’t have permissions set right. A webinar by @WilsonMattos cleared that up for me (previous webinar available for download).
So, get your server backed up, and once you do, make sure you can successfully restore the data!