Backups: on-site backups
In a nutshell:
In short, we talk about an on-site backup when it is created and stored – physically – in the same datacentre (site), or on the same server, as the production data.
Your data and the backup of your data are therefore stored in the same place.
On-site backups in detail:
An on-site backup consists of creating a copy of your website and its data on the same server, or in the same datacentre, as your live website. This method is often used for websites that require high availability and a great deal of flexibility.
It lets you take backups quickly and efficiently, without worrying about where to store and keep the data. Restores are fast and efficient, with no time lost transferring data. The tools needed are often provided for you and are easy to use.
Pros and cons:
Speed: backups are taken in real time, which means you can recover your data at any time if something goes wrong.
Ease of use: you do not need to store backups on external hard drives or servers, which reduces costs and the risk of data loss.
Integration with your hosting provider: on-site backup is often built in by your hosting provider, which makes it easier to set up and manage.
Cost: since the tools and the storage are often included in your hosting plan, a major advantage of this type of backup is that it comes at no extra cost to the user.
However, it is important to note that on-site backup is far from providing absolute protection against attacks, system errors or data loss.
Its main weakness is precisely that it is vulnerable if the server (or the entire datacentre) hosting your data (and therefore your backups too) is compromised, fails or is destroyed.
It is therefore recommended to combine on-site backup with other backup methods, such as manual backups, cloud backups, off-site backups, backups on external media, and so on.
This type of backup is vulnerable if the server or the storage location is compromised.
How to take this type of backup:
Control panels such as hPanel and cPanel, and of course Plesk at HaiSoft, all offer on-site backup options for websites hosted on their servers. For a complete, step-by-step guide to using this feature in Plesk, see our earlier article on the subject: Backups in Plesk.
You can also use the backup plugins available for your CMS; on WordPress, for example, UpdraftPlus also offers comprehensive online backup options.
You can also take this type of backup with a file manager or an FTP client, creating a copy of your files directly (with FileZilla, for example).
Which option is right for my data?
In summary, on-site backup is a reliable, fast backup method that can be used for websites requiring high availability and a great deal of flexibility. However, it is important to combine it with other backup methods to ensure optimum security.
In our upcoming articles on the subject, you will discover other solutions for combining these different types of backup and making them more reliable, so you can get the most out of them.
