Backup, backup, backup…

A hard lesson learned about backups

You would think after working so many years it IT, that I would know better.

Tonight I received a call from a friend, that deleted a file he was working on.

One of my questions was “didn’t we setup Dropbox for you?”

His response “I wasn’t working in Dropbox, it’s a long story…”

I haven’t heard back yet if the app I helped him download to restore files worked, will know more tomorrow. Was nice to be able to help someone out.

Now, the rest of the story…

I am working on a project and was trying to restore a WordPress website to migrate it. Well, the process was not going as I had hoped.  I quickly wanted to “clean up” the remnants of some failed attempts. I fired up FileZilla and access the files on the server remotely.  Select all. Delete.

Simple.

What I realized about 10 minutes later, was I deleted the root files from the web server I was working on, not the dev site – BIG MISTAKE.  HUGE.

No problem, I will restore from a backup….  uh…

I had never installed the backup software and backed up the root site – I was lost. Files gone. Not good.

Luckily, the hosting service I use does their own backups. I was able to open a ticket and get the files restored (12 – 24 hour response).

It must be my lucky day, as the files were restored for me within 2 hours. I was 2 hours of terror, as I struggle looking for any type of backup, notes, anything to help me get the site back. I could not locate anything.

Lesson learned:

Install backup software first and automate the schedule second. Then continue developing.