WordPress is a very powerful solution for creating websites, blogs, eCommerce sites etc. Part of the strength of WordPress is the strong background of solutions made available to users, from its large community to integrate all sorts of functionality to the application.
At the end of the day, keeping your data safe is your responsibility as a WordPress website creator. Your data or content could be at the mercy of hackers, faulty hardware or your personal mistakes. In order to ensure that your website is always safe or at least recoverable, it is important always to have an up-to date back up solution for your WordPress database.
These days, you will get a wide variety of solutions with very powerful technologies that can help you protect and back up your WordPress data. Most of these solutions have become relatively easier and easier to use because once they have been set up properly, you can perform your backups automatically.
Below you will find the three main categories of solutions for backing up your WordPress websites as well as four different specific examples of applications under each main category.
Way 1 :: Plugins within WordPress
WordPress has made backing up your websites very simple and integrated through use of plugins. You can simply download the plugins so that you do not have to get a completely different software or web service in order to create a backup your WordPress data. Most plugins are free on WordPress but some also charge a small fee. It is possible to schedule the plugins to automatically backup data and settings on your sites.
Below are four examples of plugins that you can use.
1. WordPress DB-Backup
This plugin creates a backup of your database and allows you to save the backup to different locations including, to your local computer, to your server or you can even email the back up to yourself.
2. UpdraftPlus Backup and Restoration
This plugin archives your WordPress data in zip format. The data that you zip can be an image of your whole database, your plugin directory or your theme directory. It also supports backup to Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google drive, Rackspace, FTP, SFTP, email and others.
3. WP Time Machine
This plugin can create archives of your WordPress data and uploads the archives to several cloud storage that are free or paid for. Some of the cloud storage integrated into this plugin include Amazon AWS S3 and Dropbox. You could also set the plugin to store the archive on an FTP of your choice.
4. Bei Fen
This plugin gives you the choice to back up your whole WordPress database or the choice to backup specific files that are important for your website. All this is possible with very few clicks.
Way 2 :: Backup Services
Backup services are solutions that allow you to manipulate your data, migrate your data to different servers or several other tasks. With back up services, you can back up your whole WordPress website and restore it back to your last backup state with a few clicks.
5. blogVault
This back up service backs up the content of your WordPress website including your posts, images, plugins, themes and your audiences comments.
6. Backupify
This back up service is very robust in its functionality. You can back up all WordPress data, different accounts including software as a service data, and cloud based accounts. The service makes use of data duplication policies to give even more confidence that your data will always be safe. These backups occur on a daily basis.
7. Backup Buddy
This back up service can store data scheduled for back up on email, FTP or Amazons S3 server. The type of data stored includes widgets, plugins and themes. Back up Buddy can then restore the backup to the same server or a different one if you have to.
8. Online backup for WordPress by Backup Technology
This service specializes in enterprise solutions in backup and recovery of data with enterprise level security in mind. The backup files become highly encrypted and compressed in a secure data center to ensure that your data is safe from any trespassers.
Way 3 :: Online Storage
The function of online or cloud based storage is simple yet very effective. Through cloud storage, you can upload data, so that it is accessible from anywhere, at any time as long as you have an internet connection.
Most cloud based storage facilities have the advantage of being free up to a certain level of data, which means that you can give the solution a try at no cost and then scale up the service at a reasonable tiered-up cost as your database grows.
You can easily password protect and compress all the critical data in your WordPress site and upload it to a cloud based storage. Examples of cloud based or online storage include – OneDrive, Google drive, Dropbox, IDrive, and Bindrive.
This article is written by Teresa Strong. She has been a web developer for the last 12 years. She uses the Cloud Backup Robot software to ensure constant protection of her work.
