Domain·Hosting
🧭 Hosting wizard · 2026

Backups That Actually Restore

A working backup strategy follows the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of your data, on two storage types, with one offsite. No single failure — disk crash, ransomware, fire — can destroy all copies when this rule is followed. The tool on this page builds a schedule matched to your site type and shows whether your current backups meet the standard.

Backups That Actually Restore

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        What to Back Up and How Often

        A complete website backup includes three things: your site files (code, themes, uploads, media), your database (content, user accounts, settings), and your server configuration (redirects, SSL certificates, cron jobs). Missing any one of these means a restore will be incomplete.

        Backup frequency should match how often your site changes. An e-commerce store processing orders daily needs at least daily database backups. A blog updated weekly can use weekly full backups. Static sites with no database need only file-level backups after each deployment.

        Retention matters as much as frequency. Keep at least seven daily snapshots and four weekly snapshots. If a problem goes unnoticed for several days — a corrupted database, a malware injection — you need to be able to roll back beyond yesterday's backup. A single latest-only backup is not a strategy; it is a single point of failure with a time limit.

        Testing the Restore Is the Actual Backup

        A backup you have never restored is a hope, not a plan. The most common backup failure is not a missing file — it is a backup that looked fine in storage but failed during restoration because of a corrupted archive, a missing dependency, or a version mismatch between the backup and the restore environment.

        Schedule a restore test at least once per quarter. Spin up a temporary environment, load the latest backup, and verify that the site runs. Check the database, load a few pages, test interactive features. If the restore fails, you find out on your schedule rather than during an emergency.

        For the 3-2-1 rule in practice: keep one copy on your hosting server, one on a separate cloud storage service, and one downloaded to local storage or a different cloud account. Automate the process so it runs without you remembering to trigger it. The quiz on this page recommends a specific combination based on your site size and CMS.

        Your hosting provider's built-in backups count as one copy, not your whole strategy. If the provider suffers a data loss event, their backup and your site go down together.

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        Built and maintained by Mustafa Bilgic · Independent — no host or registrar is named, ranked or recommended ·

        Sources

          3-2-1 backup rule originated by Peter Krogh in 'The DAM Book: Digital Asset Management for Photographers' (early 2000s). Widely adopted as industry standard.
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