Our web hosting service automatically takes care of backing up our servers and all customer data stored on them to our separate backup servers once a day. However, access to these server-level backups is only available to our staff, and restorations requested from them are chargeable. You can, however, take your own backups for free in the Plesk control panel and restore them independently without additional charge.
We recommend making your own backup before undertaking major site updates (for example, WordPress updates). Creating your own backup is done by selecting 'Websites & Domains' -> 'Backup and Restore' from the control panel.
If you don't see the backup menu, click the small box in the upper right corner.
Then select 'Back Up' from the page that opens:
In the next view, you can set the backup settings. By default, everything is backed up including domain configuration (web hosting settings), mail configuration and content (email mailbox contents), and user files and databases (your website space content + any MySQL databases), but you can leave out parts if you want to save space (for example, email content if you only need a backup of the website).
By default, the backup is stored in the server's storage space, which consumes your web hosting's website space. Alternatively, you can also specify FTP credentials to a separate backup server here.
As the backup type, you should use the default setting 'Incremental', in which case copying happens incrementally and the system only copies data that has changed since the previous backup. This saves space and speeds up copying when there are multiple backups.
You can also write a description in the comment field to help with identification if desired. This will be displayed in the control panel next to the backup. Finally press 'OK' and you will return to the previous page where the backup begins. When copying is complete, you will see its details on the page:
Restoring a backup
You can restore a backup (or parts of it) by first selecting 'Websites & Domains' -> 'Backup and Restore' from the control panel and clicking the creation date of the desired backup:
On the page that opens, you can select what you want to restore from the backup content. Restoring all backup content may not always be the smartest choice, as this will overwrite all files with older versions (including email content). It's usually more sensible to restore only the desired parts from the backup in a targeted manner using the 'Selected objects' option. Then you can select the type of object to restore from the dropdown menu (for example, email account, database, SSL/TLS certificates, sites, DNS zones, or domain files):
In the example above, a single email mailbox is being restored, but the selection can equally apply to a single database or a single domain file. (If you want to easily restore an entire website (website files and database) for example after a failed update, select website and move the desired domain-based website to selected from left to right.) Finally press 'Restore' and the restoration from backup will be performed.
Scheduled backups
If desired, you can also set up your own backup to happen automatically at certain intervals. This way you will always have a backup available for self-service restoration, even if you didn't remember to take one before starting site updates, for example. Remember, however, that by default backups are stored in your web hosting disk space. You need to be careful with scheduled backup settings, as this feature can easily cause your web hosting disk space to be exceeded, which at worst can lead to your site not functioning and possibly additional web hosting costs when disk space is exceeded. (If you're not sure what you're doing, we recommend using backup only manually according to the instructions mentioned above.)
You can enable scheduled backup by selecting 'Websites & Domains' -> 'Backup and Restore' and clicking 'Schedule':
On the page that opens, first remember to check the box
'Activate this backup task', as this controls whether scheduled backup is on or not. At the same time, you need to be really careful with the settings on this page! By default, web hosting content is automatically backed up daily and additionally a full backup is taken weekly. Copies are kept for four weeks, which means a total of one month of daily copies. Copying happens incrementally, but despite this, your disk space consumption can multiply many times over during a month. We recommend that you at least initially drop
'Store backup files' to a value of
1 (or at most 2), so that your disk space consumption doesn't increase significantly.
If desired, you can also minimize the number of backups by unchecking 'Use incremental backup' and setting the backup retention value to 1 or 2. In this case, only the maximum number you specify (for example, just one copy) will be created at the intervals you specify (for example, once a week) and you can then better manage your total disk space consumption.
After pressing 'OK', the settings are saved and you return to the previous page. Your own backups will be created automatically in the future according to the settings you have specified. However, remember to regularly monitor the creation of copies and change the settings to smaller ones if necessary, so that your disk space doesn't fill up.
