At this moment, we have 5800 articles on this website. If the server is gone away some way, we’ll have almost nothing unless we have backup. If we have nothing, then we have to depend on sites which archive data including Google. That is not exactly perfect or easy. Most important for us is text, settings as MySQL dump. Rest is images on FTP. So, we should have regular backup. Now, Which is Better For Server Backup – Cloud Storage OR Cloud Server? It really depends on one’s need. Good sites need periodical writing the backup on optical disks or tape drives. Backup, restoration strategy depends on budget and other practical matters.
Which is Better For Server Backup : Cloud Storage OR Cloud Server?
None alone is perfect. Cloud Storage like DropBox (we have guide on how to use free DropBox to push backup from SSH), OpenStack Swift is great because chance of public access, hacking is of remote possibility. Other way of back is using rsnapshot like tools to automatically set a pull from backup server. Backup server suffers from problem of failure own self out of many reasons. Some type of cloud computing software like OpenStack allows to take whole server backup and deploy it within few minutes. Technically, system like OpenStack helps more for quick disaster recovery, lesser downtime. However, in an attack OpenStack installation itself may become unusable.
For PHP-MyQL powered websites like WordPress, we can quickly take an HTML copy of whole site with wget which is no way inferior to OpenStack’s way of backup for only making the site online and readable. However, that is not the method of full server backup.
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We should plan own backup strategies before the actual disaster takes place. Although using another cloud server and rsnapshot to pull content opens up a security flaw (if backup server hacked, original may suffer), it is cost effective and practical. Cloud Object Storage usually far slower than SSH but that should be kept as an option to have the files somewhere enough to restore the site after disaster.
Latest backups should be periodically tested to check whether working as good as original and marked. They can be scheduled to be written on archival quality optical disks.
Conclusion
There are many methods to have backup of web servers. For medium to busy blog sites with thousands of articles, minimum nightly backup of MySQL and FTP is what expected to have. Free cloud storage no way inferior than having no backup at all. Despite several time warnings, many webmaster ignore the backup part and later repent.
Backup is a complex topic and there are many technologies including tape drives for archival. One should use the solution which fits own budget in future expected worst financial situation. It is not practical to use best possible archival backup paying few hundred dollars for a popular blog site as because the earning may decline in future demanding re-planning of cheaper solution.
