To ensure platform resilience in the event of a catastrophic failure, a backup of all files and the database is performed automatically on a weekly basis.
Why and when to perform a manual backup
Urgent situations like imminent site updates, major content changes, plugin installations, or before performing complex configurations may warrant a manual backup to ensure a complete and current restoration point in the event of a failure following such changes.
Automated backups are performed weekly or daily depending on the nature of your website whereas manual backups capture a snapshot of the site ‘at this moment in time’. This proactive approach minimises potential data loss risks and provides a more reliable safety net against unexpected system failures, security incidents, or unintended modification consequences because all backups include all recent database modifications, extensions, and custom configurations.
Restoration of the platform using the most recent backup archive will mean that the most recent changes would inevitably be ‘lost’ as these will not be in the backup archive. See later for how to restore a backup.
For most sites, automated backups are stored local to the platform (on the same server) and also remotely on a Drobox folder and these automatic backups are generally taken approximately one hour apart.