If you have a blog you need a backup strategy so that you can recover in case of a catastrophe like a server failure or a hacker attack. A WordPress blog consists of two types of information:
- a set of files containing the WordPress software, any extensions you’ve installed, and any images & other media you’ve added to your site
- a database which contains the text of your posts and lots of other information about how your blog is configured
You can manually take backups of your site by logging in via ftp and downloading the files and by using a DB program to download copies of your database. However, backing up this way is time-consuming and error-prone—even assuming you remember to do it regularly.
A better solution is to use an automated program to make complete backups of your entire blog according to a schedule. Recently, I’ve begun using the BackUpWordPress plugin for WordPress. This plugin allows you to schedule daily and/or weekly automated backups. The backup is created in a directory on your server which you can choose; by default, it uses wp-content/backup. After backing up you can either download the file from the BackUpWordPress dashboard or you can download it using ftp.
It also includes the ability to backup just your database or your entire blog. In addition, you can have it automatically email a copy of your backup to you. (This will probably only be useful if your blog is small.)
Of course, a backup is only useful if you can actually restore from it. Read my next post to see how that worked out.