backup & migrate

Overview

When working with database backups you can build up a huge amount of backup data. It is crucial having lots of backups to be able to restore a know working state, and the more backups you have the better the time resolution to get back to the exact same state you need.

This strategy can lead you to a lot of backups in no time. Having a lot of backups from 3 years ago is not as important as having a lot of backups from yesterday. If you agree with the last statement and you are using Backup and Migrate, then the Backup and Migrate Prune module will help you.

Backup and Migrate Prune is a module that helps you delete old and unimportant backups from the past. The module will allow you to:

• Keep all backups from the last 24h.
• Keep only one backup per day for backups older than 24h for backups from the last 7 days.
• Keep only one backup per week for backups older than 7 days for backups from the last month.
• Keep only one backup per month for backups older than 1 month for backups from the last year.
• Keep only one backup per year for backups older than 1 year.

Database and custom file backups are essential.

There are many posts in the forum topics about irrecoverable errors, WSOD, database gone fubar etc. There are times when your site goes awry or gets deleted or corrupted, and the only or best choice is to restore it from a backup.

Backup & Migrate

The Backup & Migrate module facilitates emergency recovery and site migration. You can configure it for automatic backups saved to the filesystem - with more frequent backups during development.

You can also create a manual backup before undertaking any complex configuration. That way, you have a "restore point" in case of disaster.

While there may be some issues of security when you save the database and content as a file (you could exclude certain tables, perhaps), the benefits of having a rollback in case of disaster are significant.