Why are Backups Important?

Viruses and Malware

Trojans, malware, and viruses are commonplace on the internet. They may be uploaded to your site(s) unknowingly, or you could download one unknowingly. This is especially true for users who use popular content management systems, as they're often a prime target of malicious activity. Having your files backed up means that you're prepared if your site(s) becomes compromised.

Failed/Incomplete Updates

How many times has this happened to you? You're updating your software/website suddenly. Everything is ruined. Your website is no longer recognizable, and you sit there in frustration, wishing you could undo what you've just done.

Or better yet, having your services automatically update, trusting that nothing can go wrong… and it does.

If you have backups readily available to you to restore everything, the effects of something like this are minimized and not as serious as they would be without backups.

Hackers

Hacking is a real threat on the web. Hackers have several methods to attempt to access your server, website, or account. Hackers can do several things to your online content, including but not limited to: defacing your website, stealing your client and personal information, and hijacking your services to be used to assist in their attempt to hack further instances.

Having your backups stored offsite means you have the ability to easily restore your service to a period before a hacker's infiltration. Once restored, you can then apply the appropriate security measures that may have been missing before to prevent it from happening again.

Mistakes Happen

People are not perfect. We all make mistakes. If you have a developer or employees that assist you in managing your content, there's always room for error. A file or folder being accidentally deleted. A change in configuration going awry. Anything.

Having backups ready to go will ensure that these incidents are easily and quickly resolvable. Saving you the time and frustration from having to troubleshoot and resolve/rebuild content or configurations.

Local Backups

Local backups on your personal machine are great, and we highly recommend that you have them. However, computer issues do occur, and they occur far more often than a highly maintained and monitored offsite backup service.

If your local machine is compromised, broken, lost, or stolen, having remote backups is highly recommended.

Hostwinds Backup Solution

Hostwinds offers a cost-effective backup service that backs up your server/hosting account remotely to an offsite location. These backups are accessible to you at any time and are taken daily.

Don't let yourself be caught in a situation where you need a backup but don't have one readily available.

To order our Web Shared Backups for your Web Shared or Business hosting services, please feel free to review this guide on How to Order Shared Backups.

If you would like to know more about our Web Shared Backups, we have a handy Overview of Web Shared Backups.