[support] Backup Approaches - Which Do You Use and Why?

[Bob Turner]

Being new to Drupal I don't do any of the below.  Being an old-timer on 
VMware, all I do is shutdown the VM and copy the disk files that represent 
the computer to another computer.  I've also cloned entire web sites, (er 
computer), in this manner.

Bob

-----Original Message----- 
From: Kenneth Jacker
Sent: Monday, October 08, 2012 12:29 PM
To: Drupal Support
Subject: [support] Backup Approaches - Which Do You Use and Why?

Though I am sure that there are more, I can think of at least four ways
to backup a Drupal site:

  * Drush's 'archive-dump' (ard) command

    (Backup your code, files, and database into a single file.)

  * The 'Backup and Migrate' (B&M) module

    (simplifies the task of backing up and restoring your Drupal database)

  * Use a "version control system" (VCS)

  * Use 'rsync'


B&M allows automatic scheduling of backups ... definitely an advantage.
'ard', on the other hand requires manual, 'cron' or scripted invocation.

*I* seem to favor 'ard' since it backs up *code and files* along with
databases.  B&M, apparently, only backs up databases.

Another approach might be using a VCS (e.g., 'git', 'subversion', _et al_)
... or keep synchronized copies with 'rsync'.  (These two, however, seem
more suited for maintaining "development" and "production" versions of a
site than for backing up.)


How do *you* periodically backup your site(s)?


Thanks for your comments!

  -Kenneth
-- 
Prof Kenneth H Jacker       khj at cs.appstate.edu
Computer Science Dept       www.cs.appstate.edu/~khj
Appalachian State Univ
Boone, NC  28608  USA
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