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Although most backups are done at night, and hence this document is entitled “Nightly Backups”, not all backups are done each night.
NIGHTLY BACKUPS ARE DONE WITH NO WARRANTY. THE PROCEDURES DESCRIBED IN THIS DOCUMENT MAY CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE. NOT ALL CHANGES IN BACKUP POLICIES WILL ALWAYS BE REFLECTED IN THIS DOCUMENT.
All important filesystems containing user home directories and web directories are periodically backed up. This applies to both our Classic Linux environment and our DirectAdmin environment.
Backups are done on a rolling basis and saved for approximately 4 to 6 weeks. As a result, if files are lost, we can usually restore them from backups going back to about 4 to 6 weeks ago. This works best for files that exist for at least a few days before they are lost, so there is an opportunity for them to get backed up. Files that exist briefly and are then deleted, such as recent mail messages, might not get included in a backup.
If you lose files and wish to order a restore, please contact support@rahul.net. Each restore from a full backup costs $75 for all account types except Premium, and will give you back a copy of your entire home directory tree, restored into a temporary location. (If you have a Premium account, a restore will cost $35.)
In some cases, if you require a restore from a backup of a specific date, the restore may require two separate restores: a restore from the most recent full backup preceding the requested date, and another restore from the most recent incremental backup preceding the requested date. In such cases, the restore will cost you twice as much, i.e., $150 (or $70 for Premium accounts).
In the DirectAdmin environment, your control panel menu will let you download a backup, in tar archive form, at any time. In the Classic Linux environment, although there is no menu to let you download a backup, you may use the usual tools (e.g., tar or cpio) from the shell to make and download a backup archive.
We recommend that you download backups at suitable intervals; for example, once a week or once a month, or before any major change. This will save you $75 (or $150) should you ever accidentally delete important files. It will also provide you with a greater assurance of the safety of your data should we encounter machine failures at our end.