Taking a full backup within Cpanel is really easy and we always recommend clients take their own backups. Whilst we promise best effort when it comes to our backups on shared and reseller servers we never guarantee backups with any shared hosting plan and clients buy hosting on that understanding. Taking a backup direct from your Cpanel is really simple and here is how. As always if you need any specific help with this just open a helpdesk ticket and a member of our support team will be happy to help you.
- Log into Cpanel
- Click the Backups link under the Files sub section
- Click the option to download ot generate a full website backup
- Choose a location for your backup - if you have an ftp backup account with us enter the details using the instructions provided when you signed up for our remote backup service, if you prefer to save download it and save it locally then choose the 'Home Directory' as your backup destination
- Click on the Generate Backup option
- Go away and come back in some time and refresh the page - you will now see the backup available to download
- Download the backup to your local machine and keep it safe
Important Points to Note
If you choose to store the backup in your 'home' directory you will need to make sure you delete it from the server after you download it. It may not be an issue storing a few of them but your space will quickly fill up if you do not delete them. Simply use the 'File Manager' option in Cpanel to browse to /home where you can find the backup file and delete it. Remember in Cpanel file manager to empty the trash after you delete it as well to completely free up the space.
The backups are stored in a .tar.gz format. This is a compressed file that contains all your files, emails and databases. If you want to confirm it has worked correctly you can use Winrar on a PC or just unpack it on a mac and you can view all your files and databases.
The backup in .tar.gz format can be used to restore your complete site to any Cpanel based server anywhere in the world. This gives you peace of mind meaning your site is safe and can quickly be restored.
