We’ve all done it. We’ve all had the best of intentions to backup our sites, our hard drives, etc. And of course, we don’t do it for months on end, and then you’ve got a crash and lost a lot of hard work.

I was VERY fortunate that I was able to recover all of my databases and themes for my websites. I however, I was really really stressed out for several days because I didn’t know if my last minute backups worked, if they were corrupted by the hackers . . . I just didn’t know if I’d be able to recover anything.

Loyal readers will remember that I had a big computer crash a month or so ago, and I lost months worth of data. It’s obvious that I need a system here, and I’ve been meaning to set up something for about a year. Finally, I’ve been hit over the head enough times that I’ve actually started to back things up.

The most important backup (in my opinion) is your computer backup, because you can backup your websites all you want, but if you don’t have a backup of your computer and your computer crashes, then you’ve lost your website backups too. Backing up your hard drive can be tedious and annoying.

However, I found an article on one of my favorite sites (Lifehacker) that has revolutionized my back up system. Previously I always backed up on occasion to DVDs, and every once and a while to my external hard drive. But then I read “Automatically Back Up Your Hard Drive.” I’m not even going to try to explain the system because the article is so user-friendly. Just go read it. I’ve been doing this for about 2 weeks (I actually started it 2 days before the server was hacked, so my backups were helpful in restoring my sites), and this system is great. It sets up nightly, weekly, and monthly backups that are automated. You don’t even have to be at home! And if something goes wrong with the backup, it sends you an email with a detailed report. How amazing?!

So now that I’ve got a great backup system for my hard drive, I can feel safe in backing up my sites. What’s the best method for backing up a WordPress install? You don’t actually need to save all the files on your site. For a WordPress install, it’s actually best NOT to save all the php files. If something goes wrong, then you’ll be saving all the errors (or hacked code, as the case may be). The things that are important are your wp-content folder and your database. If you do a database backup (there is a GREAT plugin for WordPress that allows for one click backups . . . super easy to use), then you’ll have all your posts, pages, settings, user accounts, etc. All that’s left is your design. Your wp-content folder holds all your themes and plugins. If you backup your database and your wp-content, then you could theoretically completely erase your WordPress install and start from scratch. You would do a brand new install of WordPress, then restore the database from your backup and upload the wp-content folder, and it would be like nothing ever changed! This only works if you’re restoring to the same domain that you had initially had the site. If you want to change domains (or even subdomains), then there is another process. But this is EXCELLENT for backups.

Another big backup that I always worry about is my email and my bookmarks within my browser. If you’re using Firefox and/or Thunderbird, this backup is a cinch too! There’s a great program called MozBackup that will back up your profile and all your data for you. It’s pretty much a one click backup, and this program will also restore your backup. I’ve done this MANY TIMES to switch computers, restore after a crash, etc. This is great backup tool as well.

I’ve actually posted a guest post over at Recommended about backing up too (I made that post while I was unable to post over here, before the restore).

What do you do to backup your data? Any great tips you want to share with readers?

Update: Well, the unthinkable happened. Not only do I use my external hard drive for backups, but also for storing alllllll my digital photos. And after 2.5 years of hard work, my drive has died. Now I have to spend more than $200 to try and recover my data because I didn’t think to KEEP A SECOND COPY!!! Make a DVD or something with any files that you don’t have stored elsewhere . . . sigh, you think I’d learn . . .