For many years now (almost since day 1 but not quite) we have offered offsite backups of all files and databases for all Reclaim Hosting accounts taken daily and stored for 30 days. It’s as much insurance for us as it is for you and we are happy to do it. This service is provided via a software program called R1Soft. You may have read a bit about this on our site at Backups Done Right – Reclaim Hosting or seen this icon in cPanel and maybe even tested it out:
Unfortunately we found the software occasionally unreliable, and the last thing you want to not be able to rely on is a backup! The cPanel plugin has not been updated and often throws errors, sometimes databases fail to restore, overall it was only an OK experience and we wanted better so we went on the hunt.
We are very excited to begin rolling out a new backup system called Jetbackup. This is a native cPanel plugin and software that connects to offsite storage similar to R1soft, but comes with a lot more features including:
- The ability for Reclaim to restore an entire cPanel account rather than just files and databases (SSL Certs, DNS zones, Email, it’s all backed up)
- Easy to use restoration tools for customers
- Low load backup processes with incremental storage
We have written a guide at Restoring Backups Using JetBackup on how to restore content using this new tool which we are rolling out to all of our servers over the coming months (we started with shared hosting and will be moving to our managed customers and Domain of One’s Own systems very soon).
One notable change is that we are changing the frequency of backups to reduce the overall storage load. In the past we stored 30 daily backups and found that one of two things happened:
- Most users needed something from the last 24-48 hours
- Most users needed something much earlier than 30 days ago
While we can’t store backups indefinitely, we can adjust how many and how often we store them to make it more convenient for everyone. The new backup policy will store the following:
3 Daily Backups
2 Weekly Backups
2 Monthly Backups
Now depending on any given date in the calendar year you could restore from up to 60 days ago and you should find the variety of options will better serve you while making the storage overhead for this service manageable as we grow. We are in the midst of continuing to update documentation everywhere but in addition to our own restoration guide you will find a wealth of information at the Jetbackup End User Documenation.
So if you ever find yourself in a bind and need some backup, don’t hesitate to reach out! And know that this is a service available to all Reclaim users whenever you need it.