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3 min read · Evergreen guideBackups and Disaster Recovery: The 3-2-1 Rule Explained
Hardware fails, mistakes happen and attacks occur. A sound backup strategy turns a potential disaster into a minor inconvenience.
Key takeaways
- Keep three copies of your data, on two different types of storage, with one copy off-site.
- Decide how much data you can afford to lose and how long you can be offline.
- Automate backups. Manual routines get forgotten.
- A backup you have never restored is a backup you cannot trust.
Why backups matter
Websites and business systems can be lost through server failure, accidental deletion, a failed update, malware or a ransomware attack. Without good backups, recovery may be slow, expensive or impossible. With them, it is routine.
The 3-2-1 rule
- Three copies: the live data plus two backups.
- Two storage types: for example the server’s disk and separate cloud storage, so one failure can’t take out everything.
- One off-site: in a different location or provider, protected from local disasters and from attacks on your main system.
Many organisations add an extra safeguard: one copy that is offline or immutable, meaning it cannot be changed or deleted for a set period, as protection against ransomware.
Two numbers to decide
Recovery point objective (RPO)
How much data can you afford to lose? If losing a day of orders is unacceptable, you need backups more often than daily, perhaps hourly or continuous for databases.
Recovery time objective (RTO)
How long can you be offline? If the answer is minutes, you need standby systems ready to take over. If it is a few hours, restoring from backups may be enough.
These two numbers determine how often you back up and how your recovery is designed.
What to back up
- Website files, themes, plugins and uploaded media
- Databases (orders, customers, content)
- Configuration files and server settings
- Email, if you host it yourself
- Business documents and accounting data
Good backup practice
- Automate backups on a schedule.
- Encrypt backups, especially off-site copies.
- Keep several versions so you can go back to before a problem started, since an infection may sit unnoticed for days.
- Monitor backup jobs and get alerts when they fail.
- Document the restore process so anyone on the team can follow it.
Test your restores
Schedule regular test restores to a staging environment. Confirm the site works, the data is complete and you know how long the process takes. Testing reveals missing files, corrupted backups and gaps in documentation while there is no emergency.
A simple disaster recovery plan
- Who declares an incident and who is contacted.
- Where backups are stored and how to access them.
- Step-by-step restore instructions.
- How you will communicate with customers during an outage.
- A review afterwards to prevent it happening again.
Our Cloud Services include automated, off-site backups, with hourly backups and disaster recovery on Enterprise. Website Maintenance plans include backup monitoring for WordPress sites.
Frequently asked questions
Aren’t my host’s backups enough?
They are a good start, but they are often kept on the same infrastructure and for a limited time. An independent, off-site copy you control is safer.
How long should backups be kept?
Keep daily backups for a few weeks and periodic monthly backups for longer, considering any legal or accounting retention requirements that apply to you.
