Originally Posted by raymor

That really sucks for them. Thing is, we see this happen all the time.
Everyone thinks it won't happen to them, or just assumes that their web
host is taking care of it. Many, like journalspace, think RAID is backup of
some sort. They learned what I've posted here several times - RAID IS
NOT BACKUP.

Here are some critical features of a proper backup system, as we learned
while designing Clonebox (which is super backup on steroids):

The backup must be on a different machine - spare copies on the same
server can be handy, but they'll likely be lost at the same time as the main copy.

Backups must be rotated, keeping several copies. Otherwise you end up like
journalspace with two copies of crap when your backup runs right AFTER the
files are deleted.

Backups must be testable and tested - far too many people find out their backups
are unreadable or otherwise unusable after it's too late.

Backups must be automatic - while people may start out keeping up with a
manual system, eventually they'll go months without a backup - right before
disaster strikes.

For web sites, backups must be immediately accessible - reloading 1 TB of
content from tape or uploading it from home would take weeks, by which time
most customers have canceled.

Alphared, the hurricanes, and similar situations have taught us that backups
must be off site - a backup provided by your host is useless when your host
is raided by police, has their connection cutoff, has a fire, etc.

Those are some things to check your current backup strategy against.
If you're not confident in your current system, Clonebox will provide rotating
backups for $5 / month, or four hot spare clones, which let you boot your
backup and have the site live in seconds for $24 / month.