How do u guys take backs up of your websites

[hellreturn]

My site total size is 22GB because of massive attachments and download files. It's getting hard to take back ups. DB size is still 950Mb so it's manageable.. but 22GB full back up every week is pain in da butt and takes long time.

Any ideas or suggestions to easy out things? Right now I run simple batch script to download files from my linux server to windows server ever week.

 

[Moshe1010]

Delete old attachments? Limit the upload size? backing up 22GB can cost you some money. I pay $20/month for daily backups to another server (about 20GB total. Files + SQLs). I can reverse all my websites up to 7 days (I can choose the day I want to reverse to). In addition, I have internal backups for SQLs only, mainly at night (takes about 1 hour).

 

[hellreturn]

Delete old attachments? Limit the upload size? backing up 22GB can cost you some money. I pay $20/month for daily backups to another server (about 20GB total. Files + SQLs). I can reverse all my websites up to 7 days (I can choose the day I want to reverse to). In addition, I have internal backups for SQLs only, mainly at night (takes about 1 hour).

Deleting old attachments is not an option and on top we have some good downloads of more then 300 maps (gaming website).

I have 4 dedicated servers and i can easily take back ups.. but even doing that it takes long time for 22Gb and size growing each day. So i am looking for some easy way to take back ups so that if one fails, i have 3 back ups in place. Just don't know how to do it..... i checked in rsycn or whatever it's called but it's tough to use.. so looking for something easier.

 

[WSWD]

I'm afraid rsync is the way to go. It's really easy once you get to using it. Time to buckle down and learn.

Rsync only copies the changed files (or parts thereof), so the only time you would potentially be copying 22GB worth of files would be the very first time you run rsync...unless of course all the files are constantly changing.

 

[rdn]

http://sypex.net/en/ = same as CLI as for performance and stability

 

[0ptima]

I dump and gzip my database and then rsync everything (eg attachments)over to another server. As WSWD mentioned, rsync only copies the deltas (ie what has changed). I have this procedure automated and it runs daily.

 

[0ptima]

So i am looking for some easy way to take back ups so that if one fails, i have 3 back ups in place. Just don't know how to do it..... i checked in rsycn or whatever it's called but it's tough to use.. so looking for something easier.

There are plenty of rsync tutorials that are easy to follow. Its worth taking the time to learn it as it is an amazing tool.

 

[AndyB]

I have two disk drives in my server and rsync every night the attachments, avatars and mysqldumps to the second backup drive. I have this process automated using a cron job. Creating a cron was easy to do using webmin.

 

[hellreturn]

I have two disk drives in my server and rsync every night the attachments, avatars and mysqldumps to the second backup drive. I have this process automated using a cron job. Creating a cron was easy to do using webmin.

Can you please point me to some good tutorial or write some good tutorial in resource section when you are free? Would help lot of admins!

Thanks all! Going to check rsync again! If anyone has more suggestions for windows to windows back up please feel free to share!

 

[AndyB]

Can you please point me to some good tutorial or write some good tutorial in resource section when you are free? Would help lot of admins!

This is a pretty broad subject with many approaches.

My solution only works for those that have a dedicated server. If you're on a dedicated linux server I'd be happy to answer questions relating to the approach I used.

 

[MattW]

I have r1soft doing 4 x incremental backups of the whole VPS per day, and I then have separate scripts running to backup my databases each night to amazon s3 and my NAS at home. I also have a manual rsync I run which back up the whole public_html directory to my NAS (13GB)

 

[HWS]

It is rather easy:
rsync -a source destination

source and destination is specified as USER@SERVERATH
You can omid USER@SERVER: at localhost.

I dump and gzip my database and then rsync everything (eg attachments)over to another server. As WSWD mentioned, rsync only copies the deltas (ie what has changed). I have this procedure automated and it runs daily.

If you would gzip AFTER the rsync transfer, you would save time with the transfer and ressources at your database server. Or you could simply use scp instead of rsync because if you gzip before the transfer there is no advantage in using rsync.

 

[Andy.N]

I have r1soft doing 4 x incremental backups of the whole VPS per day, and I then have separate scripts running to backup my databases each night to amazon s3 and my NAS at home. I also have a manual rsync I run which back up the whole public_html directory to my NAS (13GB)

Is that a free version? If not, how much you pay for the software/service?

 

[MattW]

Is that a free version? If not, how much you pay for the software/service?

R1Soft is an extra the hosting company offers, and it's £20 + VAT per month for 100GB

 

[hellreturn]

This is a pretty broad subject with many approaches.

My solution only works for those that have a dedicated server. If you're on a dedicated linux server I'd be happy to answer questions relating to the approach I used.

I have 2 linux, 2 windows dedicated servers and 2 linux VPS each running different things. Easy way to take back up one server an another 2 so that I have 2 backs of each one?

 

[TPerry]

Is that a free version? If not, how much you pay for the software/service?

I have 2 linux, 2 windows dedicated servers and 2 linux VPS each running different things. Easy way to take back up one server an another 2 so that I have 2 backs of each one?

rsync?
Once I get my 3rd dedicated server fully configured I plan on using it to rsync (via cron job) the 2 others and my VPS and then have my Mac set to rsync to it.

 

[Biker]

I'm afraid rsync is the way to go. It's really easy once you get to using it. Time to buckle down and learn.

Rsync only copies the changed files (or parts thereof), so the only time you would potentially be copying 22GB worth of files would be the very first time you run rsync...unless of course all the files are constantly changing.

Doing Deltas is fine, up to a point.

One should do a full backup once a week, and then do incremental backups for the other 6 days. Rinse and repeat. If you do nothing but deltas after that first backup, restoring becomes a nightmare. Could you imagine trying to do a full system restore with one full backup, and 700 days of deltas?

 

[AndyB]

One should do a full backup once a week, and then do incremental backups for the other 6 days.

With rsync folders are an exact duplicate, it is the same as doing a "full backup". Using a cron job I rsync every evening the attachments folder and the avatar folder. Also using rsync I have seven cron jobs one for each day of the week to create a mysqldump of my database and to copy the dump to the back up server.

 

[WSWD]

Doing Deltas is fine, up to a point.

One should do a full backup once a week, and then do incremental backups for the other 6 days. Rinse and repeat. If you do nothing but deltas after that first backup, restoring becomes a nightmare. Could you imagine trying to do a full system restore with one full backup, and 700 days of deltas?

Sorry, but that makes absolutely no sense. Restoring the rsync backups would be just the same as a full backup. The files are going to be EXACTLY the same as it would if you took a "full" backup.

 

[Mike Edge]

We use R1soft for all our servers. We do a hourly backup of the entire server for 72 hours along with 14 days of a daily backup.