Daily plugin-run website backups are fine for small stuff and small changes. But if you’ve made major changes to your site, added a ton of content or whatnot, or a bunch of updates, you want to be SURE your backup is sound. Plugin-based backups don’t always work, and often, you don’t even know that they didn’t work!
And just at the dire moment that you need to restore from your backup – poof! It’s not there. Or you get a bunch of weird error messages.
Who knows! But is it worth the risk?
See what happened when Updraft or BlogVault or BackWPup didn’t work for some poor souls!
For me, this isn’t a risk I like to take, especially on major backup events.
Like I said, plugins are great for small stuff, and I have no problem with any of these brands – at ALL. But, I don’t use any of them for my major backups because I want to be CERTAIN I have a copy of my site at any time, and that it’s safe.
And the only real way to know that, is to know how to do a manual backup (and to actually do them every once in a while).
This video will walk you through how to backup your website entirely. You’ll learn the process of creating a backup of your WordPress installation, all the files, as well as the SQL database where all your data is stored. It will also show you how to save all of it on your own hard drive, and then how to restore everything if the situation calls for it.
Not to mention, if any plugins go the way of the dodo bird (as they sometimes do!), you’ll always know how to backup your website without them.
