Blog Backups

I have made a huge time investment in my blogs. I started blogging in 2002 and have added a couple specialized blogs since that time. This work means a lot to me and like any digital work we generate it is worth developing a backup plan.

Backing up a blog is quite different from backing up most forms of content you might generate. Blog content is stored in a database with the exception of media files which are stored separately. In addition, most of us now use a remote server to host our work so a backup involves more than making a copy of a local folder and copying that folder to a second storage device.

Here is what I recommend and how I use the recommended tool. I have three WordPress blogs hosted on leased server space (not WordPress.Com). I use the plugin BackUpWordPress. What I consider the key feature of this plugin is that it both creates a copy of the database data associated with the site and saves a copy of all blog files. Other backup systems I have used only generate the database backup file. You can often generate your own copy of the other folders and files, but the general issue with backups is that most of use never seem to get this done. Automatic is good.

The plugin stores backups as part of the WordPress folder on the server (not really a backup), but sends me an email each time a backup is generated. From the email, I can download the backup and put it where I want. I store my backups in a Box account.

The plugin is quite flexible with settings for the content to be backed up, the frequency of backups, the number of backups to be retained on the server, and an email address for the purpose of verifying the backup has been performed. A paid version of this product offers methods for storing the backups with multiple services, but as I have described you can download and store the backups yourself.

I work against limits imposed by the company I lease space from so I back up once a month and store only two backups on the server. This is for each of three blogs. So, once a month I download three zipped files and store them elsewhere.

Restoring a blog backup takes a little experience. I have done it a couple of times when I ran blog software on a personal server. This, by the way, is why some of my earliest blog posts (from 2002-2003) have text, but not images. You do learn things from your struggles.