SansBlogue: Website backup and restore

Thursday, August 07, 2008

You'd think it would be easy, all I wanted to do was backup my website, by downloading it to my PC, and then be able to restore it again. First I asked a friendly guru. We got it working, though it required a bit of fiddling and two different programs. Then my laptop died...

This time I thought I'll use the power of Google. I searched for various terms "website backup and restore", "reviews website backup and restore", "magazine reviews website backup and restore" and the like. I found and installed trial or free versions of dozens (well actually nearer to half a dozen) programs. None worked well. Some backed up fine, but could not restore. Some did both, but only to the same FTP site, so no use if I have to change hosts. Some seemed to have difficulties with my system and kept hanging up...

So, does anyone have a suggestion of a Windows program that makes backing up and restoring a website:

simple: don't tell me about Chegwin and the rest of them, twenty years ago I wrote mean batch files, but I have no desire now at 60 to start that learning curve againworks to do incremental backups
will restore to another FTP site
costs less than US$60

Then please let me know!

One batch file was really mean, we snuck it into a colleague's autoexec.bat without him noticing, on bootup on April 1st it ran another file, his screen fell to bits, characters dropping and gradualy the screen went blank, for one minute nothing worked, then a new screen appeared, like the WordPerfect 5.1 startup, except it said: "a pirate copy of WordPerfect has been detected on this computer, contact the WordPerfect corporation, do not touch any key, do not switch the computer off" since the poor guy was in the middle of Africa this was difficult ;) when eventually heart in mouth he pulled the plug at the wall (nothing else not even CTRL-ALT-Delete did anything we'd piped the console to NUL) his DOS prompt now read "C: Never mind Richard WE love you!" [return]

Labels: internet, web

¶ 5:05 PM

[to Del.icio.us]

I use Offline Explorer for downloading web sites.

For restoring or copying web sites I have ftp access to, I just use SecureFX.

By Iyov, at August 7, 2008 6:36 PM

There are several tools.
1) For downloading a complete website: www.httrack.com for if yuo don't have any ftp connection ;)
2) Freeware filezilla-project.org
3) Commercial www.cuteftp.com, www.ipswitchft.com (WS_FTP)

By J. P. van de Giessen, at August 7, 2008 9:16 PM

To keep backups of my site I use Site-Vault. It downloads a copy and I can restore it easily when I need it. I didn't tried to restore it in another location but I think it works. When I bought it I paid $99 but now I see that they have lowered their price to $59 and also upgraded to 3rd version.

By Anonymous, at August 8, 2008 12:06 AM

Hi, Tim,
Check my suggestions here:
http://bibleandtech.blogspot.com/2008/01/backup-your-blog.html

By mgvh, at August 8, 2008 6:28 AM

Thanks all of you for these suggestions, what I want is to be able to do incremental backups PodBible is over 4GB now, and getting bigger every day, so I do NOT want to have to download the whole thing every time I do a backup!

I want to restore to a different FTP site so that if our cheap host goes down we can shift the DNS and carry on.

So none of my FTP clients are suitable for either part of this task.

So these two abilities are crucial. I will look at SecureFX some more if the tool I am currently trialing Handy Backup does not do the job.

HTTrack does not seem to have a restore facility at all so would only be good for moving the site all in one go, which at 5GB (soon) and rising I do not want to have to do in an emergency ;)

Site Vault is a bit expensive, but well worth looking at also.

By Tim, at August 8, 2008 6:34 AM

It is within the scope of SecureFX -- actually, it is just what I do as well.

Let me know if you need advice on configuration (if you decide to download the trial.)

By Iyov, at August 8, 2008 4:57 PM

Thanks, again, I am currently trying Good Synch, which at present seems to be doing what I want without downloading to my laptop first. If that proves not satisfactory, I will look at SecureFX next... If it is difficult to work out I'll ask for help :) Thanks!

By Tim, at August 8, 2008 5:09 PM

Does your web host offer some options? My web hosting control panel allows me to back up my email, databases and files to zip files on the server (which stay there for 3 days). I can also download them, of upload them for restoring.

By Stephen G, at August 13, 2008 5:15 PM

Thanks, Stephen, that would be a good idea for a one off backup of a smaller site. What I need is daily incremental backups and the site is over 4GB and climbing, so I don't really trust one massive ZIP file download either.

By Tim, at August 14, 2008 10:33 AM