How to Make a Full Back Up of Your WordPress Website
Are you tired of worrying about the security of your WordPress site? Backing up your site is the first step towards preventing any major damage, and this step will save you both time and money. This article will explain how to make a full backup of your WordPress site.
The Pros And Cons Of Different Types Of Backups
In the event that your WordPress site gets hacked or suffers some other type of data security breach, having a back up copy of your site will be critical. There are several different types of WordPress backup solutions, each with their own advantages and disadvantages. Here’s a quick rundown of what you need to know.
Full Backups
A full backup is an exact copy of your WordPress site, including all your content, the settings, and the design. When you make a full backup, you have the option of choosing where you want the copy stored (Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, etc.) Generally speaking, full backups are great because they allow you to go back in time and recover your site exactly as it was before the security breach. A full backup also provides an extra layer of protection in the event that your site gets hacked or suffers some other type of data security breach. Thanks to all the incremental backups discussed below, you can also restore your site to a certain point in time if necessary.
Incremental Backups
An incremental backup is similar to a full backup, but it only contains the data that has been changed since the last backup. This type of backup is great for both bandwidth and storage space savings. For instance, if you only change a few blog posts or pages every month, you can schedule an incremental backup instead of a full one. This way, you’ll only back up the data that has changed rather than re-uploading the entire site every time a new backup is needed.
If you decide to go this route, choose a time when there will be minimal activity on your site – typically, early in the morning when very few people are browsing – and ensure that you have a place to back up your site to (e.g., an external hard drive, USB drive, or network drive). That way, you will only backup the changes that have taken place since the previous backup, and you will prevent unnecessary data duplication. In case you need to go back in time and restore your site, you will not need to download and upload all the data again; instead, you will simply need to point your browser to the location where the last incremental backup was stored and click the restore button.
Daily Backups
A daily backup is simply a backup repeated every day at a set time. You can set up automated daily backups using a WordPress plugin, such as WP Cron, which will ensure that your site is backed up consistently. Having regular backups is important because it saves you from worrying about whether or not your site will be backed up in the event of a major disaster. You can also set up daily backups to automatically email you with a log of any changes that have been made to your site since the last backup (useful for security and IT auditing purposes).
Remote Backups
A remote backup is one where you copy your site to a different location (e.g., another hard drive, FTP server, Amazon S3, etc.). You would use a remote backup in the event that you want to save your site to a location that is not connected to the internet, or in the event that you want to make sure that someone else can access and restore your site in case you ever get hacked or suffer some other type of data security breach. Some examples of remote backups are Softlayer, Backpack, and Cloud 66.
Manual Backups
In the event that you want to make sure that your site is backed up even if you don’t use a plugin to do it for you, you can also do so manually. A manual backup is simply making sure that you have copied all your files to an external location (e.g., an external hard drive, cloud storage, or FTP server). You will need to perform this backup manually once a month to ensure that all your critical files are preserved in the event of a major disaster.
The main advantage of a manual backup is that you can perform it anytime you want, even if you don’t have the time to do it before a certain date. The disadvantage of a manual backup is that it is fairly complex, and it requires you to have an external hard drive, cloud storage, or FTP server ready to store all your data (bandwidth and storage space being the main considerations whenever you are looking for a place to back up your site).
Which Backup Should You Make?
Choosing the right type of backup for your WordPress site depends on your specific needs and the nature of your site. If you want to go the extra mile and ensure that your site is secure and you can always go back to exactly where you left off before the security breach, you will need to make a full backup of your site. If you don’t have the time to make full backups on a regular basis, then you should consider making incremental backups or daily backups instead. If you don’t want to go back in time and find that your site has been hacked or suffers some other type of data security breach, then you will need to make a remote backup of your site instead. If you’re still deciding what type of backup to make, then you should probably go with manual backups; at least, they can be the most complex and time-consuming, yet secure and reliable type of backup for your WordPress site.