Know the difference between your account backups and provider disaster recovery.
Your DirectAdmin backups
- Open DirectAdmin’s Create/Restore Backups or Site Backup screen; wording depends on the skin.
- Select the data you need: website files, databases, email, and account settings. Confirm enough free account storage for the backup job.
- Create the backup and wait for completion. Review any error or completion message.
- Download the completed archive and store it outside your hosting account. Encrypt sensitive backups and restrict access.
- Before replacing data, create a fresh backup. A restore can overwrite files, databases, and mail settings; read the restore options carefully.
- Test restoration periodically using an isolated test copy. An archive that has never been tested is not a verified recovery plan.
Provider off-site disaster recovery
Lizard Hill maintains off-site cloud copies for operational disaster recovery using a separate backup machine. These are not advertised as customer-accessible daily restore points, instant recovery, or an application-consistent snapshot service. A requested restore depends on retained data and its integrity; contact support to check availability.
Website files and databases can change while a file-level backup runs. For stores and other write-heavy applications, use application/database-aware exports and an appropriate maintenance or consistency procedure. Keep copies of critical data independently of Lizard Hill.
Backups stored inside your hosting account use the same storage pool as websites and email. See the Service Guarantee for disaster-recovery limitations.
