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

[tamouse mailing lists]

On Mon, Oct 8, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Bob Turner <Bob at turnerpcc.com> wrote:
> 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
> --
> [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]
>
> --
> [ Drupal support list | http://lists.drupal.org/ ]


Whatever backup scheme you choose, make sure to test that the backups
are correctly created and managed, and that you can actually restore
the site from the backup.