Backing up your Website is very important as disasters like Hard Drive Crash, Hardware Failure etc. can occur anytime at the Server End!
Normally we generate full Backup of our Website Files on our Personal Computer’s Hard Drive, but No matter if your website is running over Shared Hosting Servers or on Dedicated Server, this Post tells you How you can Backup your Entire Website Files on another Server for FREE! You can attribute this process as Offsite Remote Backup of your Critical Website Files!
Follow these very simple steps in order to generate a Full Backup on another Server:
1. Grab a Free Account over ADrive – This is indeed a great service which offers 50 GB of Free Storage Space to all it’s users!
2. As soon as you are done with creating an account over ADrive, Login to your Website cPanel.
3. Now Click Backups under File Category as shown below:
4. Here Click Download or Generate a Full Website Backup (See Screenshot Below):
5. From the Drop Down Menu of Backup Destination, select Home Directory. Also in the E-mail Address field enter your Active/Valid E-mail Address and click Generate Backup:
Note: Depending upon the whole size of your Website, this step may take some time. As soon as the Backup Generation is complete, you will get an E-mail with all necessary backup details.
6. (Important) As soon as the whole Site Backup Process is complete, go to File Manager of your cPanel under Files Category and Navigate to your Website Home Directory:
Here you will see your Complete Website Backup file in .tar.gz format. The File Name also consists of the Date & Time when the whole backup was generated:
7. (Important) Now you have to Move this File from your Website’s Home Directory to public_html as shown below:
For this Right Click on the Generated Backup File>> Select Move>> Write down public_html >> Click Move File(s)
8. (Important) As soon as the file is Moved to public_html Folder/Directory, go to public_html and locate the Backup File you recently moved. Now here you have to change it’s File Permission to 755 (CHMOD the File to 755), so that the ADrive Server can access it in the Next Step:
9. Now login to your ADrive Account and Click Transfer Remote File from your File Manager (You may create a Separate Folder specifically meant for your Website Backup):
Now a separate Page will open where you have to type the Backed up File Address as follows:
Click Retrieve and ADrive Server will start transferring your Full Backup File from the Server where your Website is Hosted. It’s all Done!
10. Don’t Forget to DELETE the Backup File from public_html Directory
Important Notes:
- Backing up your website files on your Personal Computer’s Hard Drive is always recommended, but with the help of this post your Backup will be securely stored over ADrive Server too!
- This process utilizes RAM as well as CPU of your Webhosting Server. It’s recommended that you carry on this process when your Server Load is Low/Manageable.
- Make sure your Website Content must not violate ADrive TOS
- Though the above process is completely safe to conduct, the Author of this Blog will not be responsible for Any Damages to Web Hosting Server, Website Content or any other unwanted things that may occur while conducting the steps mentioned in this Post. The Steps mentioned here in this Post are successfully done/completed for Mrintech.com many a times.
Related Reading: How to Transfer Files from One Server to Another using Rapidshare? & Transfer Files from One Server to Another Using ADrive!
Andrew
Nice article, very detailed. I did notice a typo in the step 7 graphic, it says “publi_html” instead of “public_html”. No big deal though, just thought I’d let you know.
It’s good that people have a number of backups at work. This would be good for backing up the actual site files for smaller sites, but it may not be very practical for larger sites (media etc) and it doesn’t address database backups, although I see that when you say “whole website” you’re not including databases.
Ideally, we should be using RAID in our servers and doing periodic backups of not only our actual site files but our databases as well throughout the day to external storage devices. It could be an external set of drives, or another server on the same network.
With that setup are you able to schedule daily backups? This would be useful for sites that are constantly changing. If so, you might want to include some information on that.
Keep up the great work Mrinmay!
mrintech
Thanks for the Comment
I have corrected the Typo in the Step 7 Graphic Image. Also I will update the post with more necessary information as soon as possible.
- Wishes
Not disclosed
//Corruption of File Allocation System (FAT)
To the best of my knowledge, most of the shared hosting providers provide you storage space on linux, and linux doesn’t use FAT.
mrintech
Post Updated
Thanks for commenting 
Saqib
Good post. I will try it out