WP Alpha lets you send a copy of your backups to cloud storage you own and control. We already run several backup systems on our side, but we believe you should always hold your own copy of your website, so this is one of the first things we recommend setting up after moving a site onto the platform.
The backup system can run as often as hourly, which suits WooCommerce sites where orders are coming in all the time. It supports Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, FTP, S3 and DigitalOcean.
Step by step
- Log in to the hosting console. If the sidebar is hidden, click the box icon to open it, then choose Backup and Restore. If you have more than one site, pick the one you want to set up.
- Open Remote Storage Settings and click the provider you want to use, for example Dropbox or Google Drive.
- Authorise the connection. If you are already signed in to that account in your browser, you only need to confirm access; otherwise you will be asked to sign in first.
- Tick the option to use the storage, leave file validation switched on, then click Apply and OK. The provider should now show as ready for use.
- Set a backup password and store it somewhere safe. If you lose it, your backups cannot be restored.
- Go back to Backup Manager and open the backup schedule. Choose hourly, daily, weekly or monthly. Hourly backups can run every 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 or 12 hours.
- Pick the time the backup runs. This is the server’s local time (a Sydney server uses Sydney time), so choose an evening hour.
- Keep incremental backups on. A full backup is taken once a week and only the changes are stored on the other six days. By default five weeks of backups are kept.
- Include files and databases, and select your remote storage as the destination. For a large site, turn on multivolume backups (2 GB volumes are fine) so you are not uploading one huge file.
- Exclude log files and any large files you do not need, such as a staging copy. Add your email address so you hear about errors, then click Save.
Check it is working
Come back the next day and confirm the backup appears in Backup Manager. You can download a backup from there, although it will be slow because it is pulled from your cloud storage through the browser. To restore a single file, click the backup, choose to restore files of domains, then add the files you need from the list.
Things to keep in mind
- Hourly backups add some load. A small business site that changes every few months is well served by daily backups.
- Storage adds up: keeping five weekly backups of a 10 GB site needs at least 50 GB. Keep an eye on free space.
- FTP connections drop more often than Google Drive or Dropbox, and an interrupted upload starts again, which is another reason to use multivolume backups.
- Turn on two-factor authentication for your storage account. Anyone holding a backup file could get into your website.
If you get stuck, our support team can help: log a ticket from the client area or start a live chat.