Fastest Backup Settings

[energizedit]

What are the fastest backup settings for a cPanel server? I have used the builtin backup for a number of years but have been experimenting with jetbackup. Which of these will be fastest?

Compressed
Uncompressed
Incremental

Also which would be fastest when using an offsite repository for backups. With either cPanel backup or jetbackup. Jetbackup writes directly to the offsite repository.

 

[24x7server]

Incremental Backup is always recommended for the backup configuration on cPanel server.

>> Also which would be fastest when using an offsite repository for backups.

This is something hard to answer but if the account size is smaller then compressed would be faster.

JetBackup is one of the best backup solutions and is capable of backing up all the account information of your cPanel account swiftly and efficiently. You may check this link for more details.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Incremental Backup is the best as after the full accounts have been initially backed up the system will then just backup any changes you have made since last backup.

But ALWAYS backup to a offsite or different server as no good doing a backup to the same server/account that is being backed up as if the server goes down then you have lost your accounts and the backups, if you have to backup to the same server/account then once this is complete then save it to your local drive or to a flash/pen drive, so you have a copy to restore if needed.

 

[Harv45]

Incremental Backup is the best as after the full accounts have been initially backed up the system will then just backup any changes you have made since last backup.

But ALWAYS backup to a offsite or different server as no good doing a backup to the same server/account that is being backed up as if the server goes down then you have lost your accounts and the backups, if you have to backup to the same server/account then once this is complete then save it to your local drive or to a flash/pen drive, so you have a copy to restore if needed.

Actually having a provider backed backup is worthwhile. Of course our backups are directly sent to the offsite storage but if that fry up.

Then at least I can just ticket my managed provider and tell them that I need the VPS to the latest state and go from there. Now of course that would be the "nuclear option" but it's better than losing the "world" right?

 

[easyhostmedia]

Actually having a provider backed backup is worthwhile. Of course our backups are directly sent to the offsite storage but if that fry up.

Then at least I can just ticket my managed provider and tell them that I need the VPS to the latest state and go from there. Now of course that would be the "nuclear option" but it's better than losing the "world" right?

I have my servers backed up to a cheap server in a separate Datacentre, this backup server is then mirrored to another server in a different Datacentre.

What i was getting as is when clients use the build in cpanel backup system and puts the backup in their account they have just backed up, so if the server was to go down and accounts lost then they have also lost their backup.

 

[Harv45]

I have my servers backed up to a cheap server in a separate Datacentre, this backup server is then mirrored to another server in a different Datacentre.

What i was getting as is when clients use the build in cpanel backup system and puts the backup in their account they have just backed up, so if the server was to go down and accounts lost then they have also lost their backup.

Ahh I see that does make sense now. Thank you for explaining what you meant before.

 

[ughosting]

We like the r1soft option.
At just $5 per server this is pretty amazing. The server is backed up hourly, including the databases and the backups are auto replicated in case the backup server is lost, we can switch to the "backup backup server".

Of course only backing up the blocks that change, decreases your backup footprint further and so we make small, predictable backups that don't need much in the way of resources.

We choose to use compressed transfer, but we have 32 CPU boxes, so dedicating a CPU to backup for 5 minutes every hour is not an issue.

You may find, depending on your network card, that compressing the data leaves more bandwidth for your customers, as backing up full pelt for instance without compression could easily take out a 100mbps pipe.

 

[Harv45]

I personally prefer the the "traditional rule of thumb" backup method. It as simple as 1, 2, and 3.

Having at least 1 remote backup.

Then ensuring it at least backed up 2 different ways.

Then having a total of 3 or more backups.

Assuming the clients take their backups then this would be following this to perfection. With a number of quality providers.

 

[easyhostmedia]

Assuming the clients take their backups

That is the $64 million question as we all know a lot of clients don't do this and blame the server if things go wrong when you ask then if they have a backup and they say no.
even though in the Global cPanel News (displayed in all of your users' cPanel dashboards. This includes a reseller's customers.): we have

Please Note: It is your responsibility to take regular backups of your websites.
If you use the built in cpanel backup system, then once you have made the backup please copy this to your local drive and then remove it from the server.
This saves space on the server

It amazes me on how many dont do backups

 

[Harv45]

That is the $64 million question as we all know a lot of clients don't do this and blame the server if things go wrong when you ask then if they have a backup and they say no.
even though in the Global cPanel News (displayed in all of your users' cPanel dashboards. This includes a reseller's customers.): we have


It amazes me on how many dont do backups

That is why in every half decent hosts' ToS they state that they are not liable for lost data and etc.

I agree that there clients who don't care and even would "burn us alive" for such but they are still responsible for their contents at the end of the day.

Even if they paid a high end host (say RackSpace for example) these high profile clients still gotta back up their stuffs. And as you might guessed they will have no powers to sue such providers.

 

[easyhostmedia]

That is why in every half decent hosts' ToS they state that they are not liable for lost data and etc.

I agree that there clients who don't care and even would "burn us alive" for such but they are still responsible for their contents at the end of the day.

Even if they paid a high end host (say RackSpace for example) these high profile clients still gotta back up their stuffs. And as you might guessed they will have no powers to sue such providers.

True, but some think as we hosts take backups they will be fine, but even then you restore and they will say what about all the work i did yesterday ( we run backups daily at 3am GMT along with weekly and monthly) , but basically these are for our use, even though clients have a link in their cpanel to restore backups if they need to

 

[webconfigure]

Incremental backup is the best backup technique for the cPanel. You can have daily, weekly and monthly backups in it. You can schedule any one of them as per your requirement.

If you will set the daily backup then it will be run daily at your specified time. It is always best to schedule the incremental backups in off-peak hours so there won't be extra load on the server due to running backups.

 

[Harv45]

True, but some think as we hosts take backups they will be fine, but even then you restore and they will say what about all the work i did yesterday ( we run backups daily at 3am GMT along with weekly and monthly) , but basically these are for our use, even though clients have a link in their cpanel to restore backups if they need to

I can indeed understand their PoV on that note and that is why I stated on my ToS to counter react this. Basically saying that we would take limited responsibly in regards to backups. But at the end of the day the client is still responsible for the contents.

 

[ughosting]

The problem with incremental backups is that if you change a few bytes in a 2GB file it has changed and you need to backup that 2GB file. To ensure it has changed you must at least read the 2GB file, otherwise you risk shipping a 2GB file just because it's permission or owner changed, or the file was touched etc.

Just reading every file on the system is a overhead, that's why block level backups exist. The disk subsystem just notes which blocks have been updated since the last backup was taken, so when a new backup runs only the updated blocks get backed up. The backup system then works out how to reconstitute the files.

This way if I add 4K to a 2GB datafile, I only back up a few blocks, not 2GB. So I am able to keep many more snapshots this way.

My 1TB /home drives are usually backed up in under 15minutes, so I back them up every hour.

If I back them up every 20 mins there would be less to back up as less will have changed.

 

[Hostfinch]

Incremental is faster as compared to other onyl for the first time backup takes more time depends on size of the data. and next backups will be done faster as files that have changed since the previous backup.

 

[techperx]

Incremental is faster as compared to other onyl for the first time backup takes more time depends on size of the data. and next backups will be done faster as files that have changed since the previous backup.

Yes agreed. I also prefer Incremental for myself.

 

[ronnel]

You can have incremental backups daily. Then once a week you can run full backup and then store it else where