Why website backups (and tested restores) matter
Backups are the difference between "the site's down for an hour" and "the site's gone." But a backup is only half of it. The half that counts is whether you can actually bring the site back from it.
What good backups look like
- Off the box. A backup stored on the same server it's protecting disappears with that server. It has to live somewhere else.
- Regular and automatic. If a person has to remember, it won't happen. Set it and let it run.
- Recent enough. Ask yourself how much work you can afford to lose — an hour, a day — and back up at least that often.
The part everyone skips
A backup nobody has ever restored is a hope, not a safety net. The only way to know it works is to actually rebuild from it and watch the site come up. We test restores on purpose, before you ever need one for real.
Our hosting keeps backups off the box and brings a site back on its own if it goes down — from a restore we've already proven, not one we're hoping about.