Why are off-site website backups important?

Step Ahead Web creates multiple backups every day for all premium hosted website accounts. 

Beyond just creating multiple backups daily, it's extremely important to store the backups in a location that is not on the same server as the website, and is typically referred to as "off-site" backups.

Here are some of the reasons why the use of "off-site" backups is highly recommended and considered extremely important from a security standpoint:

1. It is possible that a website server that stores the website files, as well as the database, could go down for any number of reasons.
2. If a website server were to become hacked, all of the files, as well as the database, could become compromised and/or lost.
3. If a mistake is made while updating a website, important information could have been lost.
4. If an error should occur, during a routine update of any website system (including plugins, etc.) the website could go down and lose data.

There are also other scenarios that could occur which may require a website to be restored from a backup.

So while backups alone are good.  Having "off-site" backups is a much, much, much better option. This also provides peace of mind and knowing that copies of the website (including the database) can be retrieved if needed.

If you'd like to discuss this further, please contact us.