Server backup strategy: why "it won't happen to me" is a mistake

It will happen

Disks fail. Settings get corrupted. Someone with admin rights makes a serious mistake. A failed update wipes your game data. An angry former admin deletes everything.

These are not rare cases. They happen to server owners all the time. The question is not whether your server will ever have a problem, but whether you will have a backup when it does.

The 3-2-1 rule

The basic rule for backups is 3-2-1:

• 3 copies of your data
• on 2 different types of storage
• with 1 copy somewhere else

For a game server this means: the data on the server, a backup made on the server and a copy elsewhere, for example on another server, in online storage or even an archive regularly downloaded to your own computer.

What to back up

Critical, daily:

• the world and player saves
• plugin settings
• maps and custom content
• a database export, if you use MySQL

Important, weekly:

• the whole server folder

What you can skip:

• downloaded mods you can reinstall any time
• logs older than 30 days

A schedule that actually works

Automatic daily backups around 4 AM, when few players are online. Keep 7 daily, 4 weekly and 2 monthly backups. That gives you 30 days to go back, even if you only notice a problem days later.

The daily backup saves you from "I deleted my world by mistake yesterday". The monthly one saves you from "we changed something three weeks ago and the server has been getting worse ever since".

Test your backups

A backup you have never restored from is a backup you do not really have. Check the restore at least every few months: download the archive, start a test server, restore and verify the data is intact.

It sounds boring. Finding out your backups were broken exactly when you need them is worse.

Backups at Wiptor

On game servers you have a backup slot in the panel that you create any time with one click, for example before an update or a big change, and restore from the same place. For the "somewhere else" copy of the 3-2-1 rule, download your world over SFTP to your computer now and then.

On VPS plans you make backups and snapshots straight from the panel. A snapshot is a full copy of the disk: take one before a risky change and, if something goes wrong, you go back exactly where you were.

On web hosting, backups are automatic and included in every plan.

See the game servers