It happened quick and I was overwhelmed with all the details that come with acquiring a sizable blog property.
I had acquired ChurchMag from 8BIT and there was a lot to sort out. I had migrated the site from 8BIT’s server to my own, and right when I thought everything was sailing along with no problem, I was contacted by my new web host telling me I needed to upgrade. The upgrade required an internal migration and would be done overnight.
No problem, right?
There was a hiccup and my site was down. My new web host took care of everything quickly and I was more than satisfied, but in the middle of the storm it occurred to me:
Is everything backed-up securely?
I had some slight moments of panic here and there. The thought of losing my newly acquired blog with it’s 11,000 posts and 15+ gigs of files was not an idea that was pleasant, not to mention the monetary investment that I had made.
It’s a No Brainer
For some of you this may be a no-brainer, but I went from 0 to Pro in a heartbeat. Normally you build a blog from the ground up. I definitely went “directly to GO” in the Blogger Edition of Monopoly.
In blogs past, I was able to backup my blog using some free plugins and run a manual download every week or so. Nothing major. But with this property, the rules had changed.
I pay for car insurance every month? Why did paying for a premium backup service seem like a stretch?
As soon as ChurchMag was successfully migrated to my current server, I jumped on Automattic’s solution, VaultPress. You would not believe the amount of relief I had once I was notified that everything was successfully backed-up. In fact, I even retained the backup service provided by my web host. I may revisit that decision in the future, but for now, I’m not taking a chance of losing my investment.
Not Just for the Big Leagues
Which brings up an interesting point. Just because you’re not serving-up a professional blog, doesn’t mean it’s not worth the investment of a solid backup solution. I’ve read plenty of outstanding writing on personal blogs that would be awful to lose.
Think about the time spent on each of blog post and multiply it by the number of posts displayed in the WordPress Admin.
Who wants to lose all of that time?
I’m now considering purchasing a basic backup service for my wife’s private blog! She’s poured hours into journaling and recording our family through the years. It’s the modern day scrapbook and I want to make sure we always have it. After all, that’s why I started self hosting in the first place.
Have you considered a premium backup solution and are you regularly backing up your WordPress content files and database? What do you use to backup daily?
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