On blogVault for a year, still happy with its daily backups of TinkerTry.com
This site has grown to 4.9GB of data. Not something you'd want to backup directly to my own home anymore, using something like SFTP, tying up my web host, and bandwidth, for hours. The blogVault WordPress Plugin connects your blog to the $9 monthly backup service. The first backup is full, and from there it's just quick, daily, differential, automatic backups (to Amazon S3 Servers behind the scenes). Very simple install and configuration, and overall value desribed in blogVault's video here. My first deep dive into the blogVault was now a year ago:
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This second look at blogVault is just a follow up supplemental article, with 3 new bits of info you'll find handy.
1) Plugin Update
The required Plugin for your WordPress site is now easier to install, available right on the WordPress Directory:
2) Plugin Update Tip
If you're on a 0.x version, you may want to upgrade, particularly if you want new features like Real-time backup for WooCommerce. Here's the right way:
a) deactivate then uninstall your old version of the plugin, such as the blogVault(0.92) version I still had, and when prompted, chose delete all files
b) install the new version, using your WordPress Dashboard's Plugins, Add New wizard, then search for blogVault, the 4.5 star Backup Plugin by blogVault will be your only result
c) click Install
d) click Activate
e) click Settings
f) (in a separate browser tab) Login to your blogvault.net account, then along the right-edge, click on Re-install plugin (see picture)
g) click on the 'Get the blogVault Plugin Key' button, and copy this key into your clipboard
h) paste into the Plugin Settings, and it'll immediately confirm successful this re-connection to blogVault, saying
Activated! blogVault is now backing up your site.
and will pick right up again where it left off, with automated, scheduled daily backups.
3) Figure out which plugin is misbehaving by using the blogVault History view
This feature has saved my bacon 3 times in the past year. Here's the pattern. I notice a drop in performance of page site load times world wide, using the Pingdom speed tests reports. Now that I see the date something began to slow down the site, I login to blogVault to click on the history view. Here's the nifty feature (pictured below) that I highlighted in a recent WordPress Plugin Directory review of blogVault:
Best feature is ability to easily spot a plugin gone wrong, since the "History" view will highlight any plugins that changed since the night before. I've been using blogVault to backup my VPS hosted site daily for a year now, and have found the test restores very helpful too. Glad the Plugin is now in the WordPress Plugin Directory, avoiding the need for manual install. Sometimes, I go months without thinking about my backups. That's kind of the point, isn't it?
Let us know how you do with blogVault by dropping a comment below!
