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  1. #1
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    Hosting companies passed the test in providing you backup when needed

    More or less every hosting company claims they execute daily backups!

    Backing up is a cost; backing up is taxing to server, and can show performance impact.

    Server could be up and running for months or years, without anyone knowing whether daily/weekly backups are "really" being executed or not.

    One can assume backups are being executed, but one will know only when it is requested/needed.

    Can you please share names of the hosting companies [small, big, retail] who passed your test in providing "reliable" backups when needed or asked?

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by jpaul View Post
    More or less every hosting company claims they execute daily backups!

    Backing up is a cost; backing up is taxing to server, and can show performance impact.

    Server could be up and running for months or years, without anyone knowing whether daily/weekly backups are "really" being executed or not.

    One can assume backups are being executed, but one will know only when it is requested/needed.

    Can you please share names of the hosting companies [small, big, retail] who passed your test in providing "reliable" backups when needed or asked?
    Most providers keep backup's as a courtesy and this is what most people over look when purchasing hosting or a VPS. For instance that 50GB reseller account combined with on server/off server Daily, Weekly, Monthly backups along with a quaterly backup held in a secure fire proof safe turns your data allowance into 250GB which is quite a good amount of data specially if your paying $1/Month... Too good to be true you say. Simple no rely on your provider when it comes to needing emergency backups of your data.
    UK Based Proactive Server Management.
    Zabbix Enterprise 24/7 Monitoring.

  3. #3
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    Ezpzhosting provided me with an backup.
    But with them you can restore your backup from cPanel by yourself
    www.Hostzoom.net
    Pure SSD Powered cPanel web hosting with location in Amsterdam, Netherland.

  4. #4
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    Quote Originally Posted by jpaul View Post
    More or less every hosting company claims they execute daily backups!

    Backing up is a cost; backing up is taxing to server, and can show performance impact.

    Server could be up and running for months or years, without anyone knowing whether daily/weekly backups are "really" being executed or not.

    One can assume backups are being executed, but one will know only when it is requested/needed.

    Can you please share names of the hosting companies [small, big, retail] who passed your test in providing "reliable" backups when needed or asked?
    Any provider who uses R1Soft would pass this test. The reason I say is because R1Soft will let users automatically restore files at a whim in just a few clicks. Users can also go in a check that the backups exist and are actually being run (not just in theory or in sales text).

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by jpaul View Post
    More or less every hosting company claims they execute daily backups!

    Backing up is a cost; backing up is taxing to server, and can show performance impact.

    Server could be up and running for months or years, without anyone knowing whether daily/weekly backups are "really" being executed or not.

    One can assume backups are being executed, but one will know only when it is requested/needed.

    Can you please share names of the hosting companies [small, big, retail] who passed your test in providing "reliable" backups when needed or asked?
    I think it's better if you have a single website to backup your data every 2 days or weekly and keep it with you.

    About web hosting companies .. It depends on the HDD spaces.

    When you purchase a VPS or Private server .. Normally you will be responsible about this point, especially if your server is not a managed one.

    My advice, if you will have a shared web hosting / reseller .. Better to backup your data every 2 days or as you wish.

    If you will have a VPS or Dedicated server .. Hire a Technical Support agent, or ask for a managed service "More Cost".

    Regards,
    ModServ LLC. for Internet & Web Hosting Services

    Site: http://www.modserv.com.eg
    Email: sales@modserv.com

  6. #6
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    We do daily backups and store a full months at a time of all accounts, and customers can restore them from cPanel so easy for them to check if we do them or not.
    Been running a successful independent web hosting company for over 13 years

  7. #7
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    Did not know about it.....appears some hosting companies tout R1soft all in theory, but do not provide access to "actual" backups.

    Thank you, learned some thing new today!

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by jpaul View Post
    Did not know about it.....appears some hosting companies tout R1soft all in theory, but do not provide access to "actual" backups.

    Thank you, learned some thing new today!
    Yeah that's another dimension worth noting. Some providers will have R1Soft installed but not actually be running the backups. So it's important to go back and check.

  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by jpaul View Post
    Did not know about it.....appears some hosting companies tout R1soft all in theory, but do not provide access to "actual" backups.

    Thank you, learned some thing new today!
    its not an "r1soft" statement - though, providers like to "tout" what they use

    many providers have integrated backup and self service restore into their offerings. this does provide you access to your actual backup data and allows you to self service restore that data.

    now, this doesnt always mean that data is available when you need it - I mean short of checking every day to ensure backups are always run, and if they fail one day (for whatever reason), they are run again, etc. A backup storage device could fail, then a week later you need your data and theres nothing there

    so, a backup and recovery solution in place - alone - isnt enough. if this is a legitimate concern for you (which it should be), its still sound to choose providers with a long history with this sort of thing. check their forums and social media channels and see how they have handled disaster recovery in the past, etc...

    re r1soft specifically, they have plenty of prebuilt modules (cpanel, etc) - and a really nice API. but, it depends on what services you are looking for. If you use windows hosting for example, they cant enable end user access to restore their data.

    end of the day though, your initial gut instinct is correct - find providers with a proven track record of having backups available when you need them. backup and dr is not a simple concept, and is much more encompassing then having r1soft or any other backup/recovery solution running

  10. #10
    For me, ten years now, ServInt.

  11. #11
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    You think all R1Soft-using hosts are safe!? Good luck with that.

    In my opinion, it's the worst back method around. Restoring an R1Soft backup can take a week, and is therefore useless.
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  12. #12
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    I take my this statement back .....appears some hosting companies tout R1soft all in theory, but do not provide access to "actual" backups.

    It is not about r1soft but hosting providing actually executing backups and make available the same when needed or asked; availability of online backups as self-service is perfect scenario (that I understand is R1soft's flagship feature but dependent how it is configured).

    DR will discuss more in a separate thread.

    Challenge is "backups" are not needed that frequently; unless community share their experience it is difficult to know which hosting provider "actually" takes backups. As originally said, more or less every hosting company claims taking daily backups. I have not seen any company which has explicitly mentioned they do not take backups.

    Want to know if you got backup when you needed or asked. Please PM me (if you had different experience, would like to know name of the hosting provider).

    Objective is simple.....need your help to identify a few hosting providers who "actually" take backups, based upon your actual experience.

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by jpaul View Post
    I have not seen any company which has explicitly mentioned they do not take backups.
    True, but they're not likely to highlight that. The silence can be deafening - so even allowing for the fact that not every host does as they say, I've seen plenty of hosts advertise the fact that they do weekly backups (as though that were a strong feature in their favour).
    Not as active on WHT as I used to be, but still drop in and receive email notifications from here.
    My personal blog site: https://www.oakleys.org.uk/blog

  14. #14
    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    You think all R1Soft-using hosts are safe!? Good luck with that.

    In my opinion, it's the worst back method around. Restoring an R1Soft backup can take a week, and is therefore useless.
    its tough and I hid my signature on purpose

    r1soft can do a good job, and does a good job in many scenarios and can be an effective backup/recovery/dr solution in certain scenarios

    back when we used r1soft (we were an original beta customer and used it in some capacity until about a year ago) - it was really good in some scenarios, and then, go and try to BMR an aging big shared server and how much fun was that

    anyway, havent used their newer version at all, so, I will leave it to others to comment on it

    my main point still is, the "software" a company uses to backup their customers data matters - but, its not that important. things like sanity checks on backups, reporting and actioning errors, documented processes to verify backup data, how to treat backup data in various scenarios, how to proceed with larger scale restores and bmr's when disaster does strike, how to communicate with customers during such scenarios, etc, etc, etc are all MUCH more important then the specific software company A is using vs company B.

    it cant be easy for a consumer, who is conscious of backups/restores to the level this poster is - to really figure it out.

    the best way is to narrow your choice of providers down, then do some research. read their forums, social media channels and try to get a feel for how this sort of thing was handled in the past and what the results were

  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    You think all R1Soft-using hosts are safe!? Good luck with that.

    In my opinion, it's the worst back method around. Restoring an R1Soft backup can take a week, and is therefore useless.
    The restoration speed is also dependent on the amount of data, connection transfer speeds and whether the backup location is local or remote.

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by jpaul View Post
    More or less every hosting company claims they execute daily backups!

    Backing up is a cost; backing up is taxing to server, and can show performance impact.

    Server could be up and running for months or years, without anyone knowing whether daily/weekly backups are "really" being executed or not.

    One can assume backups are being executed, but one will know only when it is requested/needed.

    Can you please share names of the hosting companies [small, big, retail] who passed your test in providing "reliable" backups when needed or asked?
    The information you need, you should find it in companies engaged in the backup, and also have the hosting service.


    An example:

    http://old.steadfast.net/services/di...ery.backup.php
    Cybernes Hosting: Hosting Cusco

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by kpmedia View Post
    You think all R1Soft-using hosts are safe!? Good luck with that.

    In my opinion, it's the worst back method around. Restoring an R1Soft backup can take a week, and is therefore useless.
    Slowness used to be in CDP 2 but it is fairly fast in latest versions. We've had bare metal restorations of server using ~75G space take around 20-30 min.. So it is no more slow from architectural stand point. However, as someone mentioned above, size of data and link speed matters a lot too..

    With regards to OP's concern, it is necessary to have some sort of management on host's end for backups to ensure that they are in place and running successfully. For us, notification reports of (failed) server backups work well so that we can fix any issue with backup.. I understand that Idera has not been good for many hosts on *nix systems but we majorly run Windows and it has been very solid with regular monitoring of backups involved.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Jan 2002
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    Backup should be "reliable" regardless what approach, software, tool is used.

    I was assuming if any hosting company is "really-in-hosting" business they would definitely have a backup (or DR) plan in place. It is not necessary to comeback in 4 hours, may be 12 or 24 hours, but they ought to have "reliable" backups to come back.

    Else, they should be honest about their backup strategy with their customers. It will rather help customers to have some backup strategy at their end.

    Honestly, I would not mind receiving email alert, that last night's backup failed, but we have 7 days old full "reliable" backup.
    Last edited by jpaul; 01-26-2014 at 11:30 AM. Reason: Spelling

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