What you cannot afford to lose.
WHAT MATTERS MOST
Your customer records and order history Your website content Your email Your business records
WHAT TO DO
Automatic backups of the site and database, stored off the server Email archived separately, since website backups do not include mailboxes Gateway records exported periodically Business records kept outside the hosting account
WHY OFF-SERVER
A backup stored on the same hosting account is lost in the same event that loses the site: a compromise, a deletion, or a suspension.
THE GATEWAY AS A SECOND COPY
Your payment provider holds a record of every transaction, independent of your systems. That is effectively a backup of your most important data.
Export it periodically.
TESTING
Restore a backup once, to a staging subdomain, and confirm it works. An untested backup is an assumption.
THE HONEST TEST
If your hosting account disappeared this afternoon, what would you still have?
If the answer is nothing, fix that this week.
