Do You Have A Backup Plan For Your Website?
Posted in Hosting, Starting Out by DB
We all know in theory that backing up data is really important but how many of us actually do it? I’m guilty as hell. Even now I have so many important files on my laptop that I have absolutely no backup of and I still continue to procrastinate about it. If we are so lax about our personal systems imagine our attitude towards our hosting server. If your server provider or hosting provider provides you with a backup solution then you are good to go but seriously how many actually do it. Even if they do, how many of us actually sign up for that data backup solution? Oh and having a RAID setup is not good enough.
Folks, understand this, nothing is guaranteed. Mechanical systems fail all the time. The best hosting companies are not immune to failed hard drives. It is absolutely vital for your business to ensure that you are indeed backing up your data. From mission critical data to plain old static website html files, they still drive your business revenue along with your reputation and of course your online success. The loss of data can be disastrous and the loss of reputation and your business might be difficult to recover from.
The best preventive measure would be to invest in a backup solution that is right for your company and your finances. This will not only protect your data, but peace of mind knowing that you have just eliminated a potential business and financial risk. Unfortunately many clients do not bother with a simple plan B, either because they are ignorant or the cost is prohibitive. And God forbid when the day comes when they do indeed need a backup they curse the hosting company for all their issues. All the webmaster forums are littered with posts complaining about hosting and dedicated server providers losing their data
Top 4 common reasons to sign up for a data backup plan
- A failed hard drive.
- You request an OS reload and do not bother backing up your server hard drive.
- You accidentally delete all your data.
- One account of a shared hosting server causes the entire server to crash.
Oh yes, trust me, accidents happen and files get deleted and yes you can get a dedicated server. The first reason however is out of your control. While a failed hard drive could be put down to fate, less than perfect hosting companies do contribute to the failure rate. How? By using hosting servers that are built from salvaged parts or parts way past their end of life. This increases the rate of failure by a factor of ‘X’. As a customer you do not know if your website is running on a brand new server or the server version of partzilla.
Backup solutions vary in complexity, function and price. Ask your hosting company about all your options and select the one that best suits your needs and budget. While it may seem a bit indulgent, you will thank your lucky stars if and when something goes wrong. If you are serious about your business, you will.
Do come back for more tips on website hosting and if you are new, do subscribe to this feed.
2 Responses
Leave a Comment
April 24th, 2008 at 2:41 am
Really very good information. Everybody comes to know about how to take back up, value of taking data back up.
April 25th, 2008 at 12:48 am
[...] recently wrote a post on website hosting on how important data backups are and today I wanted to talk about Amazon S3 and how to start using Amazon S3. From a hosting or [...]