Anyone who has lost data in a hard drive crash or similar knows the importance of backing up, and it goes without saying that this applies to your online content as well. Backing up WordPress is actually a two-step process, since your weblog consists of both a database (with all the content) and static files (image uploads and other attachments). Then you have your theme, your plugins, and so on, that you may or may not have altered but still don’t want to lose because doing so would mean that you would have to collate them all over again. In fact, as of the inclusion of automatic updates within the admin interface in WordPress (a great feature in itself), backing up these things has become even more important.
The only thing you can lose without it causing too much trouble is the core WordPress files. These you can always download again, although you may want to keep a copy of wp-config.php somewhere safe.
For your database backup needs, several options are available. The most obvious one would be to use a Web interface like PhpMyAdmin and just download a compressed archive containing the data, and that is all well and good. However, you need to remember to do it on a regular basis, and that may be a problem. Also, PhpMyAdmin and similar database management interfaces aren’t exactly the most user-friendly solutions out there, and most of us would rather not mess around with the database more than we truly have to.
Enter the wonderful world of WordPress plugins, and especially one called wp-db-backup. This plugin will let you set up various rules for database backups, and have your plugins stored on a server, e-mailed to you, or otherwise backed up, at regular intervals.
That’s the database content; now for the static files. This is very simple: just keep backing up the wp-content folder. This folder contains all your uploads (images, videos, and other files that are attachments to your weblog posts) along with your themes and plugins. In fact, it is the only part in the WordPress install that you should have been fiddling with, not counting the wp-config.php file, the .htaccess file, and possibly the index.php file in the root folder. Backing up wp-content will save all your static files, themes, plugins, and so on, as long as you haven’t set up any custom settings that store data outside it.
So how can you backup wp-content? Unfortunately, the simplest backup method relies on you remembering to do so, which of course is downloading it using an FTP program. Some Web hosts have nifty little built-in scripts that can send backups to external storage places, such as Amazon S3 or any FTP server, really. This is a cheap way to make sure your static data is safe, so you should really look into it and not just rely on remembering to make an FTP download yourself. In fact, these built-in solutions often manage databases as well, so you can set up a backup of that as well. Better safe than sorry, after all.
The last stand, and final resort should the worst happen to your install, is the Web host’s own backup solution. There is no way anyone can convince me to trust that my Web host, no matter how good they may be, will solve any matter concerning data loss. Some are truly doing what they claim, which may be hourly backups, RAID disks, and other fancy stuff, but even the most well thought out solution can malfunction or backfire. Most hosts have some automatic backup solution in place, but what happens if the whole datacenter is out for some reason, or there’s a power outage? You may not think that this could happen today, but if Google can go offline, so can your Web host. In other words, make sure you have your very own backup solution in place. I hope you’ll never have to use it, but if you do, you’ll be happy you thought it through from the start.
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Note: This article was sent to us by: Orlando F. at 05132010
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