There are 119 plug-ins in the WordPress Extend site that have the words backup and database in the descriptions. That in turn makes for a lot of options when it comes to backing up your critical data for your WordPress based website.
A recent addition to the mix not only offers you a backup solution but they offer you a backup solution in the cloud.
The IDrive WordPress plug-in allows you access to your IDrive backup account and it works with either the free basic account or a paid account. The free account offers up to 2GB of storage which should accommodate most sites. If you need more space you can get their entry level paid account for less than $5 per month that allows you to store up to 150GB.
Here is a description of the plug-in and its features from the developers:
IDrive Plug-in for WordPress is an easy to use backup utility, designed specifically to backup WordPress blog data into your IDrive online backup account. It provides scheduled as well as immediate backup of WordPress blog data including files and MySQL database dump.
Features
- Immediate backup of WordPress blog data, both files as well as MySQL data dump, into your IDrive online backup account
- Scheduled backups occur after 12 midnight every day
- Immediate restore of backed up data from your IDrive online backup account
- Smart backup – Only the first backup transfers entire WordPress content, subsequent backups are incremental where only the modified data is backed up
- Automatic notification via email on backup / restore status
- Secure transfer of data to IDrive server using SSL. Non SSL transfer option is also available for non SSL servers
- Detailed logging of backup / restore operations
System Requirements
- WordPress 2.8.5 or higher hosted on a Linux / Unix system. WordPress blog hosted on a Windows system is not supported
- Javascript enabled web browser – IE, Safari, Firefox, Chrome
- Admin access to WordPress dashboard to activate the Plug-in
- PHP 5.1 or higher
Installation is just like any other plug-in. Once installed and activated look under the Settings menu in your WordPress Admin site and click on IDrive.
The main IDrive screen. If you have already signed up for your account just enter your username and password. If you need an account click the Create New IDrive Account link.
Fill this form out to create your new account and once it is submitted you will be signed in and able to setup your backups.
This is a very self-explanatory form to setup your backup periodicity as well as just a couple of options. The backup triggers after midnight on the days it is scheduled.
The second tab on the main screen allows you to see the logs related to any activity with your backups and account.
I started up an initial backup of WindowsObserver.com and 7,460 files were identified for backup. After 10 minutes only 80 of those files had been backed up. At that pace 480 files will be backed up an hour and that means it could take over 15 hours to do this backup process. I will post a note in the comments to verify how long this back up actually took once it is done!
At least subsequent backups will be incremental and only effect data and files that have changed. I did not notice any impact browsing on my site while the backup was in progress.
“Javascript enabled web browser”
I wonder what kind of technological marvelty (yup, that’s a new word) would *REQUIRE* the use of javascript to copy some files.
…
I imagine that requirement is to be able to sign up at the iDrive site.
Will that allow me to transfer the site/hosting ? To do this I assume, first I would have to install wordpress in the site-to-be/hosting-to-be, include this plugin and do a restore. If it can’t do that then, probably I reckon only a few steps are remaining towards that end; and that would make it a free alternative to the paid ‘backupbuddy’ wordpress plugin.
Javascript is required for backup configuration process and not for the actual backup itself.
IDrive Support.
As of 0445 this morning – 3200 files are backed up with about 4200 left.
Pretty slow backup process so far.
Initial backup may take some time depending on amount of data; Incremental backup should be significantly faster. In addition, the bandwidth used for backup is throttled so as to not to impact the site usage.
IDrive Support.
Steve – thanks for stopping by and offering the info. Can you discuss the fact that my initial backup and others only copied part of the identified files?
My initial ID’d 7400 files but only backed up 3200.
The first incremental I did ID’d 8 and backed up 8.
That initial back appears to not finish and there is not completion in the logs either.
Appreciate the info/feedback.
Yeah tried this one, but gave up on it as it never finished backing up my site. Stopped at around 400 files out of 4000.
Well the status on that initial backup has not changed. It backed up 3,240 files out of 7,460 that were potential backup candidates on that initial backup.
I browsed my backup directory on IDrive and everything is backed up so I am guessing it did the job.
Just ran another backup just to see what happens and it update 8 of the files so incremental works fine as well.
Anyone else try it out?
I’ve been pondering moving my site to a new host…this might be a good opportunity to test backing up a live site and restoring to a test server (pre-production, anyway) to see how well the entire process works.
Will let you know my results once I get around to it.
I never did understand why people have to make backing up a blog so difficult? just do an SQL dump to a file on your computer using phpmyadmin. thats all the backup you could ever want. whats so hard about that? 119 plugins for backup when 1 simple command accomplishes the same task in less then a milisecond *shrugs*
Backing up website doesn’t mean to backup just database, there are other parts of website too (in WP case: uploads, plugins, themes etc)
Do you make backup after every post/page you post/make draft, after every comments is made etc? You certainly don’t make dumps every day at specific time. Plugins should enable automatic backup so you don’t have to do this manually nonstop.
Except when you use a dedicated server or VPS, you don’t have a command line access on most shared hostings
I hope that this explains you why “people make backing up a blog so difficult”.
I use automysqlbackup.sh.2.5 for scheduled backups and MySqlDumper for controled backups.
Works fine for me, I just wasn’t able to make automysqlbackup mails backups to me.
But these database-oriented storage are great
Okday,
so I’ve created my idrive account on idrive website. Logged in and everything seemed all right.
Then I’ve installed the wordpress plugin without any problem.
Last I tried to login with the wordpress plugin and I can’t. It just refuse my credentials. Tried again on the original website and it worked. So I guess the plugin is fucked up…
Roger,
Plugin works fine here for me and credentials work on both the web site and the plugin login.
I am sure you have tried this but verify that username and password 100% to be sure the same data that you use on the web is used on the plugin.
Can I also ask a personal favor? Could you find an alternative adjective to describe what you feel is up with the plugin that is not so abrasive and jarring?
I appreciate it.
Rich
Richard,
Sorry for the adjective, I didn’t meant to be rude. I’m french and I learned most of my english in some cables tv shows and I thought it wasn’t that bad…
So, I’ve just tried it again and it still doesn’t works.
I can send you my credentials if you wann try them yourself.
Thanks
Hi,
I had the some problem. You can’t use your idrive windows account for the wordpress plug in. You must create a new idrive account directly from the wordpress plug in page. this way it works fine.
Great!
Looks like a very good plugin from IDrive.
Will install it and test it out
Sounds like their are issues with this plugin. At least for now I am satisfied with my backup plan. I hope the issues will be resolved so that I won’t have qualms in the future if ever I do want to try this out.
Sorry for the adjective, I didn’t meant to be rude. I’m french and I learned most of my english in some cables tv shows and I thought it wasn’t that bad…
So, I’ve just tried it again and it still doesn’t works.
I can send you my credentials if you wann try them yourself.
Thank you..
One thing you missed is that you can’t select Windows for the OS of the account you want to back up. If you do you will get the following error. “Error: You are trying to log-in using an IDrive for Windows account. IDrive Plug-in for WordPress does not support IDrive for Windows accounts. Please click on the Create New IDrive Account button below to create a new IDrive account for WordPress. “
the lack of Windows as an OS makes this plugin almost useless for me. I set up a Windows account because nothing was said about it being restricted to Mac OS, added my contact list for the extra 10Gb and then discovered the IDrive account was useless. Created Mac OS account which means nothing will run on my Windows desktop and when I ran the plugin it just stuck at “initialising” with no way to ever check which files have been transferred. Useless to me.