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Use GUI to back up everything and restore?

JackMm

New Pleskian
We are going to update our server OS and it will require that everything will be erased. According to GoDaddy: "Upgrading your server's operating system requires a reprovision of your server, which erases all data on your server's hard drives".

We have many websites on the server that are quite large. Can the Plesk GUI handle such a task or do we need to use command line tools?

We just want to back up everything via FTP to another server, then upgrade the OS, then bring it all back. I'm concerned about how long the downtime will be and how reliable the backups will be. I've gone through the Plesk backup guide PDF but I've found it extremely confusing without a simple guide on how to accomplish this.

I've been looking through the options in the "Backup settings" but don't see any clear help guides on the page that explain the options.

For example, "Create multivolume backup". Under what circumstances should one do this and what are the advantages/disadvantages?

And under "Backup content" > "Back up": There's an option for "Reseller's configuration" and "Reseller's configuration and content". We just want to back up everything since the server is going to be erased, do we just pick the second option?

There's also this: "Suspend domains until backup task is completed". Why would one do that?

Also, after the server is reprovisioned and everything is erased. How do we bring everything back? Through the Plesk interface? Where in the interface? I don't see a "restore from backup" option available in the GUI interface.
 
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Plesk has a feature where you can backup your server to an FTP server respitory. This way it backups your server and moves the backup file to the FTP server.

After the upgrades, you can then through the plesk panel connect to the ftp respitory, it will automatically pick the backup file and restore it for you ...

The reasons you have the option to suspend websites while the backup runs is to avoid cases where customers make chanegs to there sites while the backup runs, this way you dont miss any changes clients make. (Really its optional and the choice is yours)

If the data is really much, I would also suggest an rsycn.
 
Thank you for your response, Abdi.

Did you mean to say rsync when you mentioned rsycn? And what do we do with rsync or rsycn?

Also, for my question about the option to "create multivolume backup". Under what circumstances should one choose that option in the Plesk backup interface and what are the advantages/disadvantages?

In other words what size files and/or bandwidth issues may make a multivolume backup a good option?

Finally, I see that Parallels offers "Acronis Backup and Recovery Advanced Server Plesk Edition" here: http://www.parallels.com/store/acronis/

Would that be our easiest, safest way to go about this? Why does Parallels offer the Acronis Backup when there's already a built-in backup app with Plesk? What are the advantages of paying for Acronis Backup instead of using the built-in backup you offer with Plesk?
 
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Yes, abdi meant rsync.

There's something to keep in mind though: The backup may fail, or it may not be restorable, and you won't know until it is too late. A backup isn't worth anything if you can't restore it. I strongly recommend that you find a way to test the restore process before losing all data on the existing server. To be honest it might be best to just get a new server and migrate the data to that using Migration Manager (or backup/restore). In that way, if something goes wrong, you still have the old server to go back to, and try again after resolving whatever the problem was.

Multi-volume is useful because some OSes and some filesystems can't handle very large files. 2Gb is typically chosen when splitting files because most filesystems can handle files that size. Also it is kind of less strain on the system when transferring files. You never know if something might get its knickers in a twist trying to FTP a 10Gb file (for example) but it should be OK with several 2Gb files.

There are disadvantages too...(e.g. more files to potentially get corrupted, and splitting/unsplitting has the potential to cause corruption. In theory.

I think I'd split the backup personally....but don't blame me if it all goes horrible wrong :)

The Acronis backup is a different kettle of fish alltogether. That's serious money and I'm not sure it is the right solution for you when you are moving to a different OS. Someone else will have to add any more info on that as it isn't something I've ever used.
 
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