Now might not be the time to tout the benefits of Amazon S3, given the recent Amazon cloud storage outage. Still, it is hard to beat Amazon S3 prices. Amazon offers storage at 14 cents per gigabyte for the first terrabyte of storage, and additional charges for transfer in and out. You can get easy access to that storage using a modern FTP client, such as Transmit on the Mac, and even make your S3 storage space show up as a drive on your computer. Here’s how.
You can never have too many backups. That is true with your smartphone, as well. If you want an easy way to backup some of the contents of your Android phone’s SD card, check out DropSpace for Android. Read more
When thousands of Gmail users opened their inboxes last weekend and discovered, to their horror, that even the servers at the Great and Powerful Google are fallible, the word “backup” started flying around like a hummingbird drunk on one too many cups of coffee. We all know that we should regularly back up our Gmail — or anything that contains important information — but I have to wonder how many of us heard the news of the big disaster that might have been (if Google had been unable to restore the accounts) and quietly thanked our makers when we found that it hadn’t hit us. I suspect that the count in favour would be high, and that many of that group might like to take a moment to do that backup in case it happens again.
What’s the best way to back up your Gmail, though? Can it be done for free? Yep! Read on for two methods, below.
Using a desktop email client is one of the best ways to get a backup of your Gmail account that you control. It is fairly straightforward to set up either POP or IMAP access to a webmail account in any of them, but if you are set on free and don’t have Outlook already, then download and install Thunderbird or Windows Live Mail for Windows users, or use Apple Mail on OS X. Linux users can also install Thunderbird or use one of the other Linux email clients. If you plan on using the client for all of your email needs, then you should connect via IMAP, but if you want it only for backup purposes, POP will do just fine. Setting these email clients up with Gmail is fairly intuitive, but Google has extensive tutorials on both IMAP and POP setup and troubleshooting if you run into problems.
Once you have your entire Gmail account downloaded to the desktop client of your choice, don’t stop there. Look under file to see if there is an Export option. Exporting your email to .eml format and then backing it up on a separate hard drive or three is the next logical step in a true backup process. You can also export your Contacts from the desktop client, or right from the Gmail/Contacts interface. Set a reminder series on your calendar, and do the “physical” backup regularly. If you need some tips on good file backup services, check out Evan’s post on a comprehensive backup solution.
If you don’t want to go through the hassle of periodically opening up a desktop client just to download your Gmail messages, or are just looking for yet another backup channel, then take advantage of the war for your services that Microsoft and Google are engaged in. Why shouldn’t you benefit from their attempts to draw you in? That’s the core of capitalism and free enterprise, right?
Open up a Hotmail account and and then set it up to import all of your Gmail messages. This is more than just forwarding, this is the inclusion of all of your archives, done with TrueSwitch for Hotmail. The unfortunate thing is that it stops after it imports what is in your Gmail, with no facility to continue drawing in your messages after the fact. In order to do that, you will need to open up your Gmail settings and click on “Forwarding and IMAP”. Once in there, you can set up your Hotmail as a forwarding address, and choose the option to “keep Gmail’s copy in the Inbox.” Don’t forget to schedule yourself to login to that new Hotmail address once per month, just to make sure that everything is going well, and that Hotmail doesn’t shut it down on you.
This method is also a great way to clear space in your Gmail account if you happen to (somehow) be running low on your 7+GB. The only downside is that you are backing up one cloud service to another, but the likelihood of both Hotmail and Gmail going down at the same time is not very high — chances are if it does happen, you will be worried about more important things than a few emails. Like survival — or the freezing cold suddenly emanating up from the depths of Hell.
Both of these methods are easy to implement and require very little maintenance on your part. If you are looking for even less hassle, though, and want to put your backups in the hands of someone who does such things for a living, check out Backupify (we covered it here). Backupify gives you 2GB of backup storage for free, and has paid plans besides. It can also backup many of your other services, like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, and more, and is compatible with Google Apps.
Your turn! What methods do you use to backup your Gmail account?
If you’re like me, you’ve got boxes and drawers filled with video tape, CDs, DVDs, hard drives, and even audio cassette tapes. Some of that stuff might seem indestructible, but it isn’t. Physical media deteriorate over time, and Tech and Life recently highlighted a couple of articles from PCMech that detail just how long you can expect your physical media to last, and what you can do to preserve your files.
If you have a website or blog, you probably have the same worry that most blog owners share – what would happen if the unthinkable would happen, and all your data would be lost? Would that be the end of your blog? You can reduce the risk of disaster if you have a backup plan in place. Here are a few methods for backing up your site, along with a few pointers as well.
Photo from Ibrahim Iujaz
The first decision that you need to make involves figuring out exactly what you need to back up. Your backup typically should involve two types of data: your site files, and your site database.
When I back up 40Tech’s site files, using the methods discussed below, I don’t take any chances. I back up ALL site files. Some files on the server, such as cache files, probably aren’t needed, but I’d rather be safe than sorry.
Your database typically will be backed up into one file, so there’s not much to think about there. Again, I backup the entire database, and don’t omit any tables. The only complicating factor is if you’re using a plugin or an outside service that creates its own database. I don’t know of any WordPress examples, but in Drupal, the CiviCRM plugin requires its own database. If you’re using something similar, make sure that you back up that database as well.
We’ll cover a few different methods below, but don’t rely upon just one backup method. You don’t want to find yourself in the situation of needing your backup, and finding that your sole backup method wasn’t working as well as you thought. Always have more than one backup method.
As noted, you will want to use more than one backup method. Here are a few possible ways to backup your files and databases:
1. Pick a Host With a Reliable Backup Solution
Although you will want your own backup as well, many web hosts also have backup solutions of their own. 40Tech is hosted by Hawk Host, which uses a backup solution by R1Soft that allows me to browse a week’s worth of backups (1 for each day). I can browse my site’s directory structure from within the backup, and selectively restore files.
Hawk Host also backs up my database, although restoring that requires me to contact the support team. Hawk Host can restore any parts of my database, down to individual tables. Hawk Host has been a dream since I started using it as my primary host when 40Tech was born (after using a big name host for other sites for several years). If you sign up with Hawk Host using the above link, you’ll be supporting 40Tech via our affiliate link (which, as always, we only use for products that we use ourselves, and recommend).
Given how long it can take to restore a backup from your local drive, it can be comforting to know that your host is looking out for you.
2. Use a WordPress Plugin to Backup Your Database (and Maybe Your Files)
WordPress plugins make many actions easier, and backing up your database is no exception. I use the WordPress Database Backup plugin to have a backup of my database emailed to me every day. I have it sent to a Yahoo mail account, which has unlimited storage. I make sure to periodically visit that account to clean out older backups.
Another promising solution is the Automatic WordPress Backup plugin, which I recently stumbled upon and haven’t installed yet. AWB backs up everything – your entire site and your database – to the Amazon S3 servers, which provide cheap storage and bandwidth.
3. Backup Your Files With a Backup Program
You’ll also want to have a local backup of all of your site files. I use a program called SyncBack SE to perform nightly backups of 40Tech. SyncBack SE is a commercial program, but there is a free version that loses some features compared to the paid versions. SyncBack allows you to input the FTP settings for your site, and set a schedule for the backup. Every night at the same time, SyncBack starts up, logs in to 40Tech via FTP, and compares the files there with the files that I have hosted locally. Any new or changed files are then downloaded.
The safest way to perform a backup like this would be to rotate backups, so that you’re not always overwriting your files. For example, you could have a different backup for each day of the week, along with a different backup for each week, and each month.
If you want to get really technical, perform a Google search for backing up a site via rsync. Rsync is a file transfer/mirroring program that some website owners use to mirror their sites to another site, in the event of an outage. It also makes for a good backup solution, if you can figure it out.
4. Backup Your Site Manually
Almost all web hosts give you the ability to backup your site files and database manually. You should do this occasionally, so that you’re not at the mercy of the whims of an automated system. I typically perform such a backup whenever I’m making changes to 40Tech, such as when we debuted our new theme several months ago.
A manual backup could be as simple as copying all of your files to your local drive, by using an FTP program like Filezilla. If your host offers cPanel, you can also log in and get a compressed version of your site, in a single download.
With respect to your database, you can typically download that via cPanel as well. phpMyAdmin is another service that most hosts offer. With that, you can select all of the tables of your database, and export them into a zip file for download.
If you combine two or more of the above methods, so that you have more than one backup method for both your database and your site files, you should be in good shape in the event of any trouble. How do you backup your site?
