Forums backup

[Chow]

I had a search and couldn't find anything, so I thought I'd ask what is probably a fairly stupid and obvious question....

I don't know anything about the forums software or where the information (and spam) that we post is stored or how it is stored, but I was just wondering how often, if at all, the forums were backed up? I've heard of dramas where boards have been infiltrated and messed around with (someone told a Honda forum somewhere got a good going over a while ago), and I think that given the amount and quality of technical info posted on Toymods it'd be a real shame to loose some of it if there was a crash or something.

[HAVABEER]

it'll just get backed up on a server HDD, next to the folders marked "p0rn" and "downloaded movies"

[Andrew162]

it's probably got a backup volume on the Toymods server, or perhaps should have. I've seen servers like these crash before as well, I was a Mod for a RAV4 forum in the US, and on April Fool's Day in 2003/04 (can't remember when) the Admin contacts me via email that the server has crashed, and 30 minutes later it's restored again. the next time it happened later in the day, it was no prank... it fell over and never came back up again. about 7 years worth of posts and heaps of tech data & mods, etc. went forever. it's back up again now, and I believe a backup volume is running in parallel with the main volume on the server. being a major contributor to that forum (a while ago now), I wouldn't wish anyone's info get flushed in a second without a decent type of backup to restore it if the worst DID happen.

[Alchemist]

Tis a fair point, I wonder if it gets backed up. Curious.....usually the ISP you organise your webspace through will backup once a month for you anyway...

[Mos]

It gets backed up in the form of sql dumps.

Mos.

[Alchemist]

Thanks Mos, legend

[Andrew162]

It gets backed up in the form of sql dumps.

Mos.

how often?

[oldcorollas]

how often?

how often is often enough?

[Andrew162]

weekly, monthly? with the volume of collective data on here (esp. the tech / conversions side of things) I think it would be foolish to not have at least one backup per month.

[HAVABEER]

how often is often enough?

every time a new worthy rona chop comes out.

[stradlater]

For an application of this size, if it was a corporate enterprise, it would be nightly.

[river]

Hi,

Or it could be incremental back-ups where every 5 or 10 mins (or every X number of transactions) the changes of the transaction-log are piped to another machine. From there they could be restored immediately so the back up machine is only a few mins or transactions behind, or each night the logs are restored into the back-up machine.

seeyuzz
river

[Squid]

I honestly don't see that it is necessary for a general user to worry about whether or not the forums are backed up and if so how/how often.

Let the administrators decide and they will come up with a backup regime to suit the business requirements. Users should only worry about continuity of service, and not worry about the specifics of how that service is delivered.

[Bananaman]

I honestly don't see that it is necessary for a general user to worry about whether or not the forums are backed up and if so how/how often.

Let the administrators decide and they will come up with a backup regime to suit the business requirements. Users should only worry about continuity of service, and not worry about the specifics of how that service is delivered.

Theres no harm in asking, we'd all hate for it all to go down the toilet, its good to know.

[Andrew162]

Theres no harm in asking, we'd all hate for it all to go down the toilet, its good to know.

my first post on this thread is testament to that. when a forum (or forum-based website) gets to a very proportional size, loaded with heaps of good info like this is, then I can justify asking the question as well, whether it's anyone's business or not, they're still everyone's posts up there, making a contribution to the continuity of this site as a whole. I do know what it's like to see good info get lost forever, and it's not pretty.