Such a simple task but not everyone is doing it. If you do not know how to backup your data please call your hosting company and ask them to walk you through it. I know HostGator has a tutorial video in their cPanel.
Three Examples Why:
Andrew, a friend of mine and one of my developers almost lost 75+ of his websites. I couldn’t believe it when the guy that does my backups doesn’t do his own. Luckily for him it was an operating system issue and was able to recover all of his data. Downside was it took 2-3 days to get everything back online. You can read everything he has to say about it at DayOnlineSolutions.com.
DNUnderground.com, a domaining blog, lost everything over the weekend. In this case his hosting company was not able to recover anything. Luckily he contacted me, thanks to Andrew (my developer) I was able to walk him through recovering the majority of his articles. We instructed him to do a Google search, site:dnunderground.com and select the cached articles one by one. Using this simple trick he was able to copy the majority of his articles, titles and dates. Once the site is back online it is a simple cut and paste of the articles with dates and titles. This worked for this occasion but will not always work, it depends on how often Google visits and caches your site.
YGrab.com, another domaining blog, lost everything in August. Since losing everything only 14 posts have been made, one of which to say backup your data.
Personally, if I lost all of my files I don’t think I could blog again. Two reasons, one I couldn’t imagine starting from scratch and two because I would be too embarrassed. How embarrassing to be in this business and not back up your files.
Please do not learn the hard way, backup your sites ASAP. I did a complete backup last night, took 24 minutes, which will be worth every minute if my sites go down. From that point I only need to do regular backups for my content. This I will do once or twice a week which should only take a few minutes.
One last thing, do not expect your hosting company to save you. As stated below backing up your files is a courtesy, not an obligation. I found this in my HostGator account, similar to any of the hosting companies out there. “Your use of this service is at your sole risk. Our backup service is provided to you as a courtesy. HostGator is not responsible for files and/or data residing on your account. You agree to take full responsibility for files and data transferred and to maintain all appropriate backup of files and data stored on HostGator servers“. Basically your loss and you can’t sue. Backup your files!!!
