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Do you rely on backups offered by your shared web hosting provider?
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Do you rely on backups offered by your shared web hosting provider?

o_be_oneo_be_one Member
edited October 2020 in General

Hello all,

I'm confused about an experience i had with a good and well known provider here. As usual their support was blazing fast and they helped the most they were able to but this ended in data loss with my backups being deleted. It's a mistake caused by some DirectAdmin manipulations from the provider to help me, from a ticket where the initial issue was caused by me and quite stupid (just a DNS pointing to a wrong IP). I'm not salty as it could happen, but i've tried to challenge them to understand more how confident i can be with their system.

Fortunately my data was not in prod ; i've to do the job i did already but nothing that will take me hours (just need some creativity boost, it was a landing page xD). Also i've told at the begining of my request the my data was not critical and it's ok if there is an issue that make them disappear (i had backups in Softaculous, i was "confident" for this SSL and DNS support request). Also to note: i'm a cheap customer ; i mean i'm probably anyway important for my provider but for sure i'm a really small customer ; i've only their first web hosting offer, no any other service.

So my question is: do you rely on your providers backup especially regarding shared web hosting?

Usually i always use my backup server for all stuffs from providers. But i don't know why i was more confident about tools like DirectAdmin and CPanel from providers offering good services. I had in my backlog to setup my own backups outside them, but not urgent. With this experience i feel like it's now a priority before anything.

Thanked by 1ViridWeb

Comments

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    Simple answer.

    Nope, never.

    P.S. I did not read the wall of text.

  • I'm old. I'm cynical. I believe most people suck. if you didn't do it yourself, then in my mind the odds of it being done right go down. So anything that affects your livelihood and your reputation with clients or impacts your quality of life (ie the server setup is really cool I want to make sure I keep it) is your responsibility.

    Multiply the cost of your hosting plan by 2,000 (lets assume they have many customers). What's the total dollar amount? If you don't think it can realistically support more than one person - I presume you are going to have delays, issues, trauma at some point - so you have to prepare for it. Most companies on here generate beer money after expenses and can hardly support 1 person let alone multiple people with in demand technical skills.

  • I dont even trust my own backups so i backup in few different locations.

  • dustincdustinc Member, Patron Provider, Top Host
    edited October 2020

    I agree with @Unbelievable Also for those taking advantage of offers that promote backups included, I encourage end-users to test it. Request the backups, or request a restore to see how they do. Were they really backing up data? Also, it's always good to know retention.

    Thanked by 1o_be_one
  • ViridWebViridWeb Member, Host Rep
    edited October 2020

    Having own backups will help you to avoid opening this kind of thread

    https://www.lowendtalk.com/discussion/160903/scaleways-major-f-ck-up

  • deankdeank Member, Troll

    You sometimes hear this from cartoon villains.

    Do I have to do everything?!

    The answer is, aye if it's important to ya.

    Thanked by 1o_be_one
  • Backup - Backup of a backup - Backup of that backup.

    Do you know we give free backup VPS just so you can have a backup of your backups, backups, backup?

    Thanked by 1o_be_one
  • @seriesn said:
    Backup - Backup of a backup - Backup of that backup.

    Do you know we give free backup VPS just so you can have a backup of your backups, backups, backup?

    Yeah i've seen that in family perks for VPS xD ! Nat VPS backup ahah

  • NeoonNeoon Community Contributor, Veteran
    edited October 2020

    No, you always put the backup away from the source
    You also should let it "suck" from the source, instead of "blow" from the source.

    If you let it blow and your stuff gets invaded, your backups also gone.
    So better let it suck/pull from the source.

  • FranciscoFrancisco Top Host, Host Rep, Veteran

    @Neoon said:
    No, you always put the backup away from the source
    You also should let it "suck" from the source, instead of "blow" from the source.

    If you let it blow and your stuff gets invaded, your backups also gone.
    So better let it suck/pull from the source.

    Giggity

    Francisco

  • No. Just no. Never.

    Thanked by 1o_be_one
  • @Neoon said:
    No, you always put the backup away from the source
    You also should let it "suck" from the source, instead of "blow" from the source.

    If you let it blow and your stuff gets invaded, your backups also gone.
    So better let it suck/pull from the source.

    Oh boi

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @deank said: P.S. I did not read the wall of text.

    P.P.S. He used paragraphs. No wall. If 12 sentences are too much for you, perhaps a Disney+ subscription is more your speed?

  • @o_be_one said:

    @seriesn said:
    Backup - Backup of a backup - Backup of that backup.

    Do you know we give free backup VPS just so you can have a backup of your backups, backups, backup?

    Yeah i've seen that in family perks for VPS xD ! Nat VPS backup ahah

    Very Fancy

    Thanked by 1o_be_one
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    @seriesn said: Backup - Backup of a backup - Backup of that backup.

    That way failures can cascade and become more spectacular :-)

    I prefer multiple independent backups of the original.

  • XsltelXsltel Member, Host Rep
    edited October 2020

    @Neoon said: If you let it blow and your stuff gets invaded, your backups also gone. So better let it suck/pull from the source.

    no let it push to "borg serve --append-only --restrict-to-repository". and let borg prune monthly.
    you will have 1 month of append-only transactions .

    if you lose that 1 month of transactions. its on you!!

  • @Xsltel said:

    @Neoon said: If you let it blow and your stuff gets invaded, your backups also gone. So better let it suck/pull from the source.

    no let it push to "borg serve --append-only --restrict-to-repository". and let borg prune monthly.
    you will have 1 month of append-only transactions .

    if you lose that 1 month of transactions. its on you!!

    I have one repo that prunes every month , and one that doesn't (immutable history) on different providers.

  • m4num4nu Member, Patron Provider

    I'm clearly biased, but everything important is backed up to BorgBase.com once a day.

  • Thanks to this discussion I learnt how to download backups from Jetbackups at my @SmallWeb hosting.

    Thanked by 2zomby1 MichaelCee
  • deffo not

  • I don't even trust my own backups.

    I usually run multiple types of backups. A simple file copy on local disc, rsync over ssh to a remote directory, incremental tar/gzip, restic/borg to a repository and just to top it of a complete vm backup from the hypervisor level.

    Personally, I never use the cpanel, da etc backups. I've gotten distress calls from to many customers crying that their data is gone because the backups cant be restored and spent to many hours trying to figure out how the panel of the day tries to implement backups and why it hasn't worked. I'm not saying their all shit, I've just seen it blow up in people faces to many times to trust any of them.

    Thanked by 2o_be_one vimalware
  • Do you rely on backups offered by your shared web hosting provider?

    No.

    You might think your host is more reliable than "you", because it's their job, but crap happens to anybody,and they can perfectly loose your backup for any kind of reason, it's certainly even written in their TOS, that they are not liable for data loss.

    Another point is that, if they are hacked, your backup and the sensible data they contain can be accessed by someone else.

    Indirectly related, this is also why, when I stop using a dedicated server , I spend days over writing the disks, to be sure the data can never be recovered by the next user. In the past, I used to run recovery software on my new servers, to sneak a peek at what the previous user was doing, and you'll be amazed by the quantity of information you an recover ...

    Thanked by 1o_be_one
  • Thank you all for your answers. It's really interesting!

    I don't use Borg but i've read about it and it looks like fantastic. Laugh at me, i use BackupPC :D. Honestly this tool is fucking easy to use for anybody and as i have a non IT expect team also i wanted something easy to use that allows quick restore from a web gui ; this tool helped us so many time.

    Probably behind our backups we can add a system like AWS Glacier or Backblaze B2 to be sure it's all strong enough ^^. You know these backups you forget about but you may want to see 10y later xD !

  • @rcy026 said:
    I don't even trust my own backups.

    I usually run multiple types of backups. A simple file copy on local disc, rsync over ssh to a remote directory, incremental tar/gzip, restic/borg to a repository and just to top it of a complete vm backup from the hypervisor level.

    Yes, I strive to maintain data in 2 'formats' as well. VM image(proxmox) + borgbackup-from-inside-vmFS for proxmox self-hosted VMs.

    Thanked by 1o_be_one
  • It is always recommended to maintain your own backup on your local PC

    Thanked by 1o_be_one
  • i would recommend to use your own or get somme ftp space and upload to that, most control panels like cpanel and plesk will support that.

    Thanked by 1o_be_one
  • LeeLee Veteran

    The only thing you should rely on provider backups for is when something goes wrong and it is convenient to get back up and running quickly using them.

    If you care about your data at all, then you handle the backups to an external location and ensure they are kept safe.

    I see so many people who believe that the backup is the responsibility of the provider as they pay them extra to do backups. When I try to explain, but what if there is a fault, data is lost and the backups are corrupt? The answer is always 'well the provider is going to have a claim from me'. Ok, but not much use, your data is gone, no claim is going to get it back.

    Thanked by 2vimalware o_be_one
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