How-to · Advanced · one hour of setup
How to Schedule Server Backups
Automated, offsite and tested — the three conditions that make a backup real — a practical, jargon-free walkthrough with the classic mistake flagged before you make it.
Straight answer first
The job: automated, offsite and tested — the three conditions that make a backup real. Time to allow: one hour of setup. Skill needed: advanced.
Below you get the exact steps, the classic snag, and a tip from the support desk. Where our platform handles a step for you, the guide says so rather than making you do the robot's work.
Written by the Hosting Seller staff · Checked 1 August 2026
Advanced
Skill needed
5
Stages to finish
Free
Help included
Tested
On our own kit
This guide assumes no expertise at all — just a hosting account, a browser and one hour of setup of attention. Every instruction works on our platform exactly as written, and carries over to any standard cPanel host.
One promise before you start: nothing in this guide is irreversible. Where a step could bite, we say so and give you the undo.
The overview before the detail
From start to finish, you will list what has to survive, write the collection script, send a copy somewhere else, schedule it and rotate it and test a restore every quarter.
Each stage is a few minutes of steady clicking — the time it takes depends mostly on how familiar the control panel already feels. The detailed steps sit further down this page; skim the whole route once before you begin.
Read this before the first click
Backups written faithfully to the same disk they are protecting. One disk failure then takes the original and every copy in a single event. The failure mode is so common it is practically the default, and offsite storage is the entire cure.
It is worth learning because it is not some rare edge case — it is the single most common reason this task turns into a support ticket. Knowing it up front turns the whole job from risky into routine.
The shortcut, straight from the support desk
Monitor the backup job itself — a mail on failure, or a dead-man's-switch ping on success. The backup that quietly stopped running in March gets discovered in September, always at the worst possible moment.
It costs a minute now and pays that back every time the job comes round again — which, like most hosting jobs, it certainly will.
The parts we have already done for you
We have automated the steps that do not deserve your time: certificates issue and reissue themselves, the installer handles application setup, the daily backup covers the what-if, and per-site settings live in a panel instead of a config file. The guide above covers what remains — the part that is actually about your site.
Stuck halfway through at an odd hour? That is exactly what round-the-clock human support is for — tell us where you are in this guide and we will pick it up from there.
The hosting this guide is written against
Every walkthrough on our how-to shelf is tested on the platform we actually run — cPanel, LiteSpeed, NVMe, one-click installs — so the instructions match your screen instead of gesturing vaguely at it.
Order an annual plan and the first year of your domain registration is on the house.
- Step by step, tested exactly as printed
- The snag flagged before you reach it
- The dull steps are already automated
- People on hand at any hour if you stall
Why Hosting Seller
On every plan, as standard
Scoped honestly
Automated, offsite and tested — the three conditions that make a backup real is a advanced-level task — this guide budgets one hour of setup and says which steps the platform absorbs.
Help on the counter
Stuck on step three at midnight? Support answers at any hour, mid-guide included.
Automation where it belongs
SSL, backups and installs run themselves here, so the guide covers only what is genuinely yours to do.
The undo is always named
Where a step could bite, the guide says so and tells you how to put it back again.
The snag, named early
The classic mistake for this exact job is flagged before step one, so one hour of setup stays one hour of setup.
Works exactly as written
Every step tested on the platform we run — no 'your host may differ' hand-waving anywhere.
First Steps
From choosing to live
- 1
List what has to survive
Web roots, databases, configs — nginx or apache, crontabs, the useful parts of /etc. Write the restore-day list before backup day, because anything not on it is not being saved.
- 2
Write the collection script
Database dumps plus tar or rsync of the file list into a dated archive. A dozen lines of shell that amount to the engine of the entire backup system.
- 3
Send a copy somewhere else
rsync or rclone to object storage or another server. A backup on the same machine dies with the machine; being elsewhere is the property that makes it a backup at all.
- 4
Schedule it and rotate it
Cron runs the script nightly, and rotation keeps dailies for a month with monthlies behind them. Bounded storage, with useful depth still available.
- 5
Test a restore every quarter
Pull an offsite copy and restore it somewhere scratch. That fire drill is what turns 'we have backups' from a belief into a fact you can rely on.
In the Box
Packed with every plan
- A backup taken daily, with restores you run yourself
- LiteSpeed caching running at the server, not bolted on by plugin
- Webmail in the browser plus IMAP, POP and SMTP for your own client
- Nothing added at setup — no joining fee, ever
- A 30-day money-back guarantee on every hosting plan
- WebP image optimisation built in and costing nothing
- Mailboxes that carry your own domain name
- One-click installs for WordPress and 400+ other applications
- A domain free for year one when you order annually
- A 99.9% uptime commitment, watched by monitoring day and night
Across the Counter
The questions we get asked most
How often should a server back up?
Match the rate at which your data changes. Nightly suits most; a busy database deserves more frequent dumps. The deeper question is retention — keeping a month of dailies covers the slow-discovery disasters that yesterday's copy alone cannot.
Are the provider's snapshots enough on their own?
They are excellent for rolling a whole server back and poor as your only layer: same provider, same account, and coarse-grained. Snapshots plus your own offsite file and database backups cover each other's failure modes.
Are backups included, and can I put one back myself?
A backup is taken daily on every plan, and the restore is yours to run from the panel in minutes — files, databases or both, at three in the morning without waiting on a ticket. Keeping your own copy offsite as well is never a bad habit, and nothing here stops you.
Can I set the PHP version myself?
Yes — PHP versions are chosen per site from the control panel, so an old application and a current one can sit side by side on the same account. Extensions and per-site settings live in the same screen, and none of it needs a support ticket.
Is the SSL certificate genuinely free?
On every plan, with nothing held back. The certificate is issued the moment your domain points here and reissues itself well before expiry. The encryption is the same as a paid DV certificate — paid tiers exist only for wildcard coverage or organisation validation, which most sites never need.
What if the site outgrows the plan I bought?
You move up in place. Plan changes are made from the client area with no migration and no downtime, and the range runs from small shared accounts through VPS to whole dedicated servers. Growing becomes a line change on your account rather than a hunt for a new host.
Can I test changes somewhere safe first?
Yes — plans with staging let you clone the live site, work on the copy, then push it across when you are satisfied. It is the difference between hoping an update behaves and knowing that it does before any customer meets it.
Read next
How to Connect to a VPS With SSH
A first login done properly, and no password at all by the time you finish — intermediate level, about 20 minutes.
How to Enable Two-Factor Authentication
Make a stolen password useless on every login that actually matters — beginner level, about 15 minutes.
Domain Names
Search, register and transfer names — year one free with annual hosting.
WordPress Hosting
WordPress looked after for you — LiteSpeed caching, staging copies and daily backups.
Packing up and moving host? Take our checklist.
A plain running order for a move nobody notices: what to copy first, how to carry email across without dropping a single message, when to point DNS, and the two slips behind nearly every hour of downtime we get called about.
Whenever you're ready to order.
Every plan carries the essentials other hosts ring up as extras — and support that actually replies.
See the plans