Author Topic: Backing up (Read 16598 times)

Kerioak~Christine · « **on:** August 30, 2013, 09:24 »

I have just learned the hard way -

1. DO NOT rely on your host to back up your site

2. DO NOT trust the back-ups you can download from your host

If a file is to big they may well skip it

I think the only way would be to ftp everything to your chosen back up area.

Other people will can let you know the most important files to back up but in my case it is currently

Symbiostock_rf

As most of my files (over 1,100.00 ish) somehow disappeared from this folder a few weeks ago I have a lot of work to do re-uploading/editing/seo-ing/publishing. I do not know how it happened and it took me a while to work out the full extend and reason for the problems I was having.

ShazamImages · « **Reply #1 on:** August 30, 2013, 09:36 »

Quote from: Kerioak~Christine on August 30, 2013, 09:24

I have just learned the hard way -

I'm very sorry to hear that.

Quote from: Kerioak~Christine on August 30, 2013, 09:24

If a file is to big they may well skip it

I'm not sure why this happened on your site, but on GoDaddy they will kill a process that runs for over 30 seconds (give or take). I guess that they feel that if a process take over a certain amount of time, then it is a runaway process. In addition, you have to remember that they have thousands if not tens of thousands of websites on one server, so they don't want one website hogging resources. When I was starting to schedule my backups at night, they were failing every day for the first few days. I found that they were killing the jobs after a certain amount of time. So that is when I decided to break up the backup into smaller pieces that could get done within their timeframe. This also resulted in smaller downloads.

Quote from: Kerioak~Christine on August 30, 2013, 09:24

Other people will can let you know the most important files to back up but in my case it is currently

Symbiostock_rf

You also want the following:

files in your web root directory
symbiostock_ipn
symbiostock_network
wp-admin
wp-content
wp-includes

and a bakckup of your MySQL database.

stockphoto-images.com · « **Reply #2 on:** August 30, 2013, 10:08 »

Oh wow this sucks. Sorry to hear that. Did you lose all your images?

Any explanation what happened?

cathyslife · « **Reply #3 on:** August 30, 2013, 10:16 »

I tried to do an ftp backup of my site last night from bluehost. After 2 hrs i went to bed and let it run. The server timed out, of course, so not all files were copied. So i have to sort thru tonight and copy what didnt get copied. I just think, with all the high rez image files, i (we?) are going to have to find a better solution.

Sorry you are having problems Christine.

Kerioak~Christine · « **Reply #4 on:** August 30, 2013, 10:19 »

ShazamImages - thanks, useful to know which files.

For those of you who have not come across it ShazamImages started this useful thread - http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock-technical-support/tips-on-how-to-administer-a-production-symbiostock-website/ . I added this one as the words back-up are words everyone understands.

No idea why it happened - maybe during the downtime the host had if they were doing something to my files at the time? I don't think even I would be daft enough to delete those files .

Thanks stockphoto-images, no, no explanation but at least I know why some of my images were uneditable now and I will be doing more regular back ups, straight from ftp. I have some spare external hard drives so will get sorted and rotate them off site

Cathy, I agree, we need to find out HOW do do back-ups without everything timing out

marthamarks · « **Reply #5 on:** August 30, 2013, 10:25 »

Oh, Christine, I am so sorry to hear about this! It's everybody's nightmare. Very sad to hear it happened to you!

My marthamarks.com site was hacked and destroyed a few years back. At the time, it was a lot more complicated than it is now, with lots of custom-built commercial pages. I had no backup other than that supposedly provided by the host, and it was never restored. I never bothered to go back and recreate it. Too much work for too little gain. Nowadays, I keep that site extremely simple, just pointing in different directions... like to my new SYS site!

Based on that nasty experience, I subscribed to VaultPress about a month ago, when I realized how much work I was going to put into my new SYS site. It may be overkill, but it doesn't feel like it. For $15 a month I feel quite confident that if something bad happens, I won't have another disaster on my hands.

VaultPress is built and operated by the same people who created Word Press, and it's well reviewed. I feel quite confident that the *hourly* backups it provides will do the job for me if I ever need that service.

Good luck in getting all those images back up!

Redneck · « **Reply #6 on:** August 30, 2013, 11:20 »

I think the problems with the server timeouts are based on the slow FTP transfer.
When I moved my entire site from Bluehost to All-Inkl I did an SSH wget between the two servers. I believe my 11GB took about 2 hours without any interruption to get copied. You can read about it here (7.): http://picturebreeze.com/stock/photos/how-to-move-your-wordpress-site-to-a-different-webspace-host/

Now I'm backing everything up to Bitcasa. The interesting part about it is that you can "download" stuff directly from one web server to your cloud drive. Which means you don't have to store it on your computer and you don't need to use your internet connection. And of course this is way faster than your regular FTP client transfer.
However, Bitcasa is not free. It costs $10/month or $99/year but you get unlimited cloud storage. Here's my referral link if somebody is interested: http://l.bitcasa.com/VnzNTTXb

Ron · « **Reply #7 on:** August 30, 2013, 11:20 »

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on August 30, 2013, 10:16

I tried to do an ftp backup of my site last night from bluehost. After 2 hrs i went to bed and let it run. The server timed out, of course, so not all files were copied. So i have to sort thru tonight and copy what didnt get copied. I just think, with all the high rez image files, i (we?) are going to have to find a better solution.

Sorry you are having problems Christine.

I am not sure what FTP client you are using but you should set the Keepalive Command. Even when a transfer is running a server can time out due to passiveness, weird but true. A keepalive command will ping the server and keep the connection live instead of timed out.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8682127_fix-timeouts-filezilla.html

Maybe that can help.

cathyslife · « **Reply #8 on:** August 30, 2013, 11:47 »

Ron · « **Reply #9 on:** August 30, 2013, 11:55 »

The link is instructions to set the keepalive command on FZ. But I am happy with Filezilla.

picture5469 · « **Reply #10 on:** August 30, 2013, 12:58 »

I think this thread should be a sticky.

CrackerClips · « **Reply #11 on:** August 30, 2013, 13:33 »

Christine, I'm really sorry to hear that happened to you.

Since our discussion about best practices the other day http://www.microstockgroup.com/symbiostock-technical-support/tips-on-how-to-administer-a-production-symbiostock-website/msg340841/#msg340841 I've looked for services to provide the proper backup for my site.

I ended up choosing a company called Backup Machine https://www.backupmachine.com/a/72482iudjs/ (affiliate link, remove everything after .com if you'd rather). They offer three different price points: Free, $4.99 & $9.99 a month. Because of some additional databases and storage I have on my server I needed the additional space so I went for the $9.99 plan. I just had to provide a couple of pieces of info to access my server and that was it. So now I'm having my site backed up completely and automatically every night at a time of my choosing. The site should be able to be restored easily with just a button push. I just had my 1st full backup last night and today I definitely feel better about the all the work I'm putting into this security wise.

stockphoto-images.com · « **Reply #12 on:** August 30, 2013, 13:46 »

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on August 30, 2013, 10:16

I tried to do an ftp backup of my site last night from bluehost. After 2 hrs i went to bed and let it run. The server timed out, of course, so not all files were copied. So i have to sort thru tonight and copy what didnt get copied. I just think, with all the high rez image files, i (we?) are going to have to find a better solution.

Sorry you are having problems Christine.

Cathy, did you actually try to drag and drop the folders the way they are on the server to your hard drive via FTP?

Those will be many tens of thousands of files to transfer - way too much risk for some getting "lost" AND so much longer to transfer!!!

In my Hostgator File Manager I can ZIP individual files or selected files which then are much easier (and faster) to download.

Maybe you can do that too on BlueHost - I'm fairly sure they have that ZIP feature as well.

Maybe you already knew that though. Just trying to make sure.

cathyslife · « **Reply #13 on:** August 30, 2013, 14:02 »

Quote from: stockphoto-images.com on August 30, 2013, 13:46

Quote from: cathyslife stockphotos.com on August 30, 2013, 10:16
I tried to do an ftp backup of my site last night from bluehost. After 2 hrs i went to bed and let it run. The server timed out, of course, so not all files were copied. So i have to sort thru tonight and copy what didnt get copied. I just think, with all the high rez image files, i (we?) are going to have to find a better solution.

Sorry you are having problems Christine.

Cathy, did you actually try to drag and drop the folders the way they are on the server to your hard drive via FTP?

Those will be many tens of thousands of files to transfer - way too much risk for some getting "lost" AND so much longer to transfer!!!

In my Hostgator File Manager I can ZIP individual files or selected files which then are much easier (and faster) to download.

Maybe you can do that too on BlueHost - I'm fairly sure they have that ZIP feature as well.

Maybe you already knew that though. Just trying to make sure.

Unfortunately, bluehosts backup broke a couple of months ago and i dont get the feeling that they are even going to restore the service. Even the paid pro backup is broken. They had no useful info when i called 2 nights ago and even said that it was a discretionary service and they were under no obligation to provide. But prior to that, it worked exactly like you said on hostgator.

Yes, i did drag and drop. Its the only other way i knew how, but these threads have offered some possible solutions.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #14 on:** August 30, 2013, 16:20 »

Given how much time I'm putting into getting my portfolio into my Symbiostock site, it's a little unnerving to read that Bluehost's backup isn't reliable (or isn't even being done).

I'll look into VaultPress and Backup Machine. I already use Backblaze for my offline backup of my local work, one of three legs in my backup stool, so I'm OK with online services as long as they have a decent reputation. I don't care about the images themselves, but all the work put into cateogrizing and doing the SEO who-ha, menus, etc. etc. I wouldn't want to do this again. Something that is automatic is a big win in my setup.

To that end, would other people who use a paid backup service for their Symbiostock site care to say what they use and if they'd recommend it?

cathyslife · « **Reply #15 on:** August 30, 2013, 16:40 »

Quote from: Ron on August 30, 2013, 11:20

I am not sure what FTP client you are using but you should set the Keepalive Command. Even when a transfer is running a server can time out due to passiveness, weird but true. A keepalive command will ping the server and keep the connection live instead of timed out.

http://www.ehow.com/how_8682127_fix-timeouts-filezilla.html

Maybe that can help.

I did have FileZilla already set up. I forgot about that. I guess that means I went too long between backups.

Anyway, fixed the keepalive setting, so will use this until I find another, better solution.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #16 on:** August 30, 2013, 16:40 »

Quote from: Bryan on August 30, 2013, 13:33

...I ended up choosing a company called Backup Machine https://www.backupmachine.com/a/72482iudjs/ (affiliate link, remove everything after .com if you'd rather). They offer three different price points: Free, $4.99 & $9.99 a month. Because of some additional databases and storage I have on my server I needed the additional space so I went for the $9.99 plan....

I just checked my cPanel and I have 4.5GB of storage used right now plus 50 MB in a MySQL database. I have only 260 of my images uploaded so far (I have a family website and my husband's blog elsewhere on my site, but that accounts for only 1.5GB storage).

I have a portfolio of about 2,500 images. By the time I'm done uploading, I think I'll be way over the maximum Backup Machine supports even with the 9.99 plan (10 GB).

As far as I can tell, VaultPress doesn't have a maximum file size.

ShazamImages · « **Reply #17 on:** August 30, 2013, 16:50 »

Quote from: jsnover on August 30, 2013, 16:40

I just checked my cPanel and I have 4.5GB of storage used right now plus 50 MB in a MySQL database. I have only 260 of my images uploaded so far (I have a family website and my husband's blog elsewhere on my site, but that accounts for only 1.5GB storage).

I have about 380 images and I am using about 1.4 GB of space (which includes a 4 MB MySQL database). I'm not sure why your usage is so much higher.

cathyslife · « **Reply #18 on:** August 30, 2013, 16:54 »

Here is another solution that someone PMed to me. I have not looked into it yet. It is a wp plugin called UpdraftPlus Backup/Restore. They tried it out, its free but you can pay for advanced options. Said it was fast, and she linked to her Drop box account so it backed up there, then she can copy to wherever. It looks like it backs up the DB too and has a Restore function.

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #19 on:** August 30, 2013, 17:32 »

Quote from: ShazamImages on August 30, 2013, 16:50

Quote from: jsnover on August 30, 2013, 16:40
I just checked my cPanel and I have 4.5GB of storage used right now plus 50 MB in a MySQL database. I have only 260 of my images uploaded so far (I have a family website and my husband's blog elsewhere on my site, but that accounts for only 1.5GB storage).

I have about 380 images and I am using about 1.4 GB of space (which includes a 4 MB MySQL database). I'm not sure why your usage is so much higher.

I think it has to do with the differences in the types of images we each have. Most of my recent stuff (since early 2009) is from my 5D Mk II and is 5616 x 3744 at full size. Photographs often take up more space as JPEGs than renders because of the many small variations. I also have a number of composites and panoramas that are bigger than the camera maximum. So my typical JPEG size is from 5-7 MB and the composites and panoramas can be up to 25MB

marthamarks · « **Reply #20 on:** August 30, 2013, 18:04 »

Quote from: jsnover on August 30, 2013, 16:20

Given how much time I'm putting into getting my portfolio into my Symbiostock site, it's a little unnerving to read that Bluehost's backup isn't reliable (or isn't even being done).

That's exactly why I took the plunge with VaultPress. I don't have to do anything, remember to do anything, and still it's working, doing its thing every hour. I know it's working because every hour I can see the numbers of images, files, plugins, etc, change whenever I've done something to the site.

Since I've been working almost full time on this project for almost 2 months and expect to keep going at that rate for a good time to come, I'm glad for that frequent backup.

If I had a major crash without a backup, would I pay $15 or $150 to get the whole thing back without having to repeat months of work?

You betcha!!!

LesPalenik · « **Reply #21 on:** August 30, 2013, 18:24 »

I just signed up for a free 15GB cloud service with copy.com . You can use my referral link below, to get extra 5GB so you'll end up with 20GB space.
That's a lot of space. Depending on your file sizes, it might accommodate a few thousands of images.

https://copy.com?r=v7M1IK

Les

Jo Ann Snover · « **Reply #22 on:** August 30, 2013, 19:00 »

Quote from: LesPalenik on August 30, 2013, 18:24

I just signed up for a free 15GB cloud service with copy.com . You can use my referral link below, to get extra 5GB so you'll end up with 20GB space.
That's a lot of space. Depending on your file sizes, it might accommodate a few thousands of images.

https://copy.com?r=v7M1IK

Les

I took a look at their site, but it appears (they are a big short of "Learn more" links and rather oversupplied with "Sign up" ones!) this only handles files you upload to them - like Dropbox - and not automatically backup up a web site's files. I don't want to copy files down from the server and up to a different server if I can find a cloud-to-cloud backup option.

Did I misunderstand how Copy works?

Ron · « **Reply #23 on:** August 30, 2013, 19:38 »

I dont know, I bought the back up pro pack for 9.99 and it seems to back up my site daily.

I have 10GB on my site in use in total, and 32mb MySQL

LesPalenik · « **Reply #24 on:** August 30, 2013, 20:00 »

I think, you are right, Kathy - it should work like Dropbox, you just get more storage space

If you schedule the backup process overnight or handle it in chunks, it should work. I can accept that.

MicrostockGroup Sponsors

Author Topic: Backing up (Read 16598 times)

Kerioak~Christine

ShazamImages

stockphoto-images.com

cathyslife

Kerioak~Christine

marthamarks

Redneck

Ron

cathyslife

Ron

picture5469

CrackerClips

stockphoto-images.com

cathyslife

Jo Ann Snover

cathyslife

Jo Ann Snover

ShazamImages

cathyslife

Jo Ann Snover

marthamarks

LesPalenik

Jo Ann Snover

Ron

LesPalenik

Related Topics

Sponsors

Microstock Poll Results

Sponsors