Backing Up Data

Plesk can backup the following data:

• Account configuration. Such backups have small size and are
  convenient for restoring account settings in case of configuration
  problems.
• Account configuration and website content. This type of backup
  requires more disk space and system resources because Plesk also
  saves the content of all websites, including databases. Such backups
  are the best way to prevent data loss.

You can perform backup manually at any time, or schedule it for a
specific time. For example, make the full backup once a day at night
time when the number of site visits is minimal. To get the details on
scheduling backups, refer to the section Scheduling
Backups.

Full and Incremental Backups

Plesk supports two types of backup:

• Full. Each time you create a backup, the backup includes all data
  regardless of the time when the data was last updated.

• Incremental. An incremental backup contains only data that was
  changed since the time of the last previously created backup.

  Using incremental backups significantly reduces the duration of a
  backup operation and the disk space occupied by backup files.

Plesk includes in incremental backups the following data:

• Web hosting data changed since the time of the last previously
  created backup (full and incremental).
• Mail data changed since the time of the last previously created
  backup (full and incremental).
• Full backup of database data

Storing Backups

There are two ways of storing backups in Plesk:

• On the Plesk-managed hosting server. All backup files are stored on
  your Plesk server along with other account content. Note that in this
  case backup files occupy the disk space provided by your
  subscription.
• On a remote FTP server. All backup files are stored on a remote FTP
  storage. In this case, backup files do not occupy the disk space
  provided by your subscription. The instructions on how to configure
  Plesk to save backups to an FTP account are provided below in this
  section.

Creating Password-protected Backups

You can secure sensitive data in your backups by protecting them with a
password. Protection makes it impossible for an attacker to reveal
backup data if the security of your external backup storage is
compromised.

You can specify a backup password in the following circumstances:

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