Backup Technology has created a new plugin for WordPress that allows you to securely backup your WordPress database online. While there are quite a few plugins that can backup your WordPress data, none of them offer an online solution, until now.
For many of you, blogging is a money making business and that means you must protect it in case something bad happens (this is true even if your blog doesn’t make money). This means having a backup solution in place. The Online Backup for WordPress plugin can not only backup your WordPress and email you a copy, it can also back up the data onto Backup Technology’s secured servers.
Backup Technology offers 50MB of free secured server space with the plugin. In this day and age of TB size drives, 50MB may not seem like a lot but it’s more than enough for most blogs. My blog, which has over 3,000 posts and 160,000 comments, consumed only 23MB of space. I still have a long ways to go before I reach the 50MB limit.
Five Steps to Total Protection
- Download the plugin here.
- Upload the plugin to your blog using the Plugins > Add New > Upload feature in your WordPress Dashboard.
- Register for your 50 MB of free space on Backup Technology’s backup portal.
- Configure your plugin to enable encryption and provide the login details of your online account by clicking Change Settings on the Tools > Online Backup page.
- Schedule your backup by clicking Change Schedule on the same page
Online Backup for WordPress allows you to schedule your backups every hour, twice a day or once a day. Backups can be emailed to you, sent to the backup portal or both. As I’ve stated, Backup Technology provides 50MB of free storage space. When it is reached the oldest backups will be removed to make space for the newest, so you will always have the latest backups available. Each time a backup is added, Backup Technology sends you a notification email.
At the moment, Online Backup for WordPress backups your database. Future versions will add backup for plugins and themes. This is the best backup solution I’ve found for WordPress so far. Having a copy of my database on my computer as well as on a secured server in the clouds just adds to that extra piece of mind. And best of all, it’s free!
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One of the most common complaint (or excuse) I hear from potential new bloggers is they don’t know how to install WordPress. Terms like FTP and CPanel are like a foreign language and setting up a database might as well be setting up the space shuttle for a launch. Because of the technology barrier, many would-be bloggers never start their blogs...
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An even easier method is to install the plugin WP DB Backup, and schedule email backups of your databases to a dedicated Gmail WP backup account. 7GB+ of free storage will last forever!
I’d trust my uptime with Google rather than Backup Technology.
You now he makes money on that! LOL!
The free GMAIL method works just fine and is automatic.
There’s nothing stopping you from emailing a copy to your Gmail and sending a copy to Backup Technology.
For me, this wouldn’t work because Gmail has an attachment size limit of 20MB and my DB is bigger than that.
That’s exactly why I didn’t bother suggesting it…figured your DBs to be bigger than 20mb…but Gary still has my heart!
Better to let everybody know since most people won’t have DB’s over 20MB!
Considering that both options are free ones, it may be good to keep backups at both places. That way
1. You can schedule more frequent backups.
2. You can have better uptime even compared to google
3. Just in case google pulls out of your country (if you are from china) or if your gmail account gets compromised as well, you will still be protected.
smart
I have WP DB Backup set up on my blog, and for some reason it keeps sending me backup files that are 0 bytes. I can’t figure out why.
That sounds like that would work with Gmail. I’ve been doing backups with WP DB Backup for some time now.
and u will find the plugin here
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-db-backup/
Seems to me that Back Up technology will have tough competition and they have to offer something special.
It is always good to backup. I didn’t start doing it for awhile, until I had a database error on one of my blogs and had to start again.
No matter how advanced we become, it pays to remember the basics
With me it took a hacking of my site to remind me the importance of taking backups.
I use a plugin for wordpress wp db backup. The plugin can also send a scheduled backup to the e-mail. But this option is good too.
That plug in has been around for quite a while.
Going to use this one!
I’ve been using Automatic Wordpress Backup which uses Amazon S3. So it’s super affordable and your backups (of database and files) are stored on Amazon’s secure server.
I think since you host images on Flickr it does not occupy much space for you.
It’s always better to try and get your images hosted somewhere else.
Yes this will also make loading time fast.
I think I read on a reputable seo blog that google prefers images on the same server. I am not mentioning the url out of fear that John will mark me as a spammer, especially since I am new and I have already left tons of comments on the blog that have all gone to the moderation queue.
Why would you want Google to index your database?
I like using this one instead, since it also backs up your files and DB to Amazon S3
http://www.wordpressbackup.org/
really great recommendation
Awesome post. All it takes is one crash of your server and everything is lost. Look at the Sidekick problem. Even though most of the data was saved, if such a sophisticated and large storage system can fail, my somewhat shady hosting provider might as well. You might as well be safe, especially for free.
Usually your host will do backups for you.
Yeah, but you can never be too sure. It’s always good to be proactive about backing up your data instead of leaving it in someone else’s hands.
I second that. It is smart to be safe.
Nice tips..
Thanks for share..
Great information. I have been using a plugin that emails me backups once a week and I store them in a folder within Yahoo! mail. But have a service store them seems even better.
I found this extremely informative. I personally never used a back-up solution for any of my blogs.
I think it’s probably about time i look into it. I will take a look at what you recommended.
A must-read and a must-have for anyone that has an online presence. I learned the hard way and now we schedule backups automatically once a day and perform other backups when we’re changing code.
I also have a backup on place in my wp blog it would be a total nightmare if it went down the toilet.
kind regards
sam
X
WP DB Backup is awesome because you can backup AND restore your data all on the dashboard of Wordpress.
yap. i agree we need to do some backup for our back.
Can you back up any blog with this?
Hmm..strange thing happened: it shows up in my cpanel in the right place yet does not show up at all in my WordPress dashboard
What are you using exactly?
Hem.. i may consider to use it because online backup surely make that i can access the backup any time any where.
I prefer the free methods.
i needed this stuff although i have a long way to reach the 50mb limit. I think its a good deal
Well this one is sounding really interesting and can make you stress free as well.
this one i installed in my blog already. it is great one.
I use the same plugin for backing up, this post remind me that i am not getting regular back-ups in my email, let me find out what the problem is?
I prefer to use WB Database back. This plugin delivers the daily backup of your database to your emailId specified. Whether you post anything or not in ur blog, a mail definitely comes to you. I wud say this as the easy and best way to take back up of ur wordpress blogs
Atul
I will take this post as an omen to get backups sorted
Thanks for this post. I’ll try to implement this backup for all my wordpress sites.
Thank you for the tips. I use wordpress, and will try this too.
This makes good sense. You’ve got to protect yourself in case something unthinkable happens. Thanks
Thank you again for the very useful Information, John!
I hope to read more stuff like this, even if it is only a little “How to make this and that” post once in a while – it makes your blog more worthy to read…!
How long can this remain free though is the question.
John,
Does it overwrite the previously backed up data? That may be dangerous as if the plugin runs after loss of data and then overwrites the previously backed up data, then the user is going to find a zero sized backup file. Not much helpful.
No, it doesn’t overwrite the old db. It just makes a new one. When you hit your 50MB limit, it will start deleting the oldest DB. Say your DB is 10MB and you backup everyday. You will always have the past 5 day backups of your DB. Every new day deletes the fifth day.
That makes sense and that ways it might be better than keeping backup in gmail because inspite of the 50 mb limit, you are never going to hit the upper storage limit.
There’s also the Jason Calacanis backed http://www.backupify.com/ (He invested in it)
It’s always a good idea to backup. I never understand the people that just go right along without ever backing up anything. You never know what will happen.
Very Helpful! I have no idea on how to back up my site until I read this. Thanks
I Think its very helpful
Gisbert
Backing up should be automatic for you. very important!
@John,
I was referring to the comment about hosting the images separately. I read on seomoz that images hosted on the same server as content do better than images hosted on third party server like flicr.
That could be true if someone is doing an image search. However, I rather get searches from content than images.