Back that thing up!

[ironchip]

Could someone help me out with setting up my backup please? I mean I went through the tutorial, but it suggests using FTP to back data up to another server.

I don't have access to another server, so does that mean I need to establish another account somewhere else just to do backups? If I want to store the backups directly to my network harddrive, how do I accomplish that.

Don't get me wrong HG, those turtorials are an awesome piece of work, but sometimes they are too technical for me, and leave me going over them again and again, to see if I missed anything. When I still don't understand, then I hop either here on the forums, or live support.

[Friss]

Just back it up to your home directory then download it once its done and you can delete it or just leave it there in case you need it.

All assuming you are using cPanel and it works the same as on shared hosting.

[ironchip]

thanks Friss

[rota919]

A basic backup system could be as easy as setting up an ftp server on your home / office pc and have WHM download the backups to that pc.

Backing up on the server itself and leaving it there for feature reference is a bit suspect. You can still loose it unless you download the backups yourself.

That makes it another thing to worry about and can take some time to do depending on your connection speed.

[jamesoks]

Ironchip,

As rota919 suggested, you can set-up a FTP server at home, but that will mean that PC has to be on all the time.
What I did was buy a NAS with a built in FTP server, and just have WHM do a weekly backup. It's pretty straightforward using the 'Configure Backup' function there. All you need is your FTP host and account name/password. If you already have a 'always-on' network hard drive, then you can just set up the FTP server there (may have to do port forwarding if it's behind a router)
After each backup, you will then receive an email confirming success and what has been backed-up. Do note that this backup goes off the hostgator server, so will eat into any bandwidth allocations your hosting plan has.

[rota919]

No need for the pc to be left on all the time.
My backup pc is only left on when the cron is going to run the weekly backup.
The same for the FTP server, it is only started before the backup is due.

[andrewtayloruk]

This is an excellent idea. I've just got myself a NAS that i can use to do this as well.

[ironchip]

thanks for all the great info guys, i think I will go the NAS way. Although I think a lvl 3 VPS should provide enough monthly bandwidth to accomodate the backup and usage of the individual accounts.

If not, then it will be time to upgrade, nevertheless, NAS sounds like a great idea.