Media Backup

This document describes how to back up your uploaded media (images, PDFs, etc.) using an FTP client.

Note: Backing up your database stores all data you've entered into the CMS except uploaded media, such as images and PDFs. For ease of access, these are not stored in the database; instead, they live in regular folders (usually called a 'directories') on your web server. These media directories must be backed up separately from the database. However, you probably don't need to back them up as frequently; depending on how often you upload media, once a month should be sufficient for most people.

For this task, you will need the following:

*Any FTP software
*The location of your FTP space
*Your FTP username and password
*The names of your media directories
*Your web server's HTML directory

What FTP software should you use?

For Mac users:
Transmit (www.panic.com/transmit)
Fetch (www.fetchsoftworks.com)

For PC users:
SmartFTP (www.smartftp.com)
CuteFTP (www.cuteftp.com/cuteftp)

We strongly recommend that you not try to use a web browser to make an FTP connection. While some web browser support limited FTP functionality, they are rarely user-friendly enough to make them worthwhile for backing up your data.

Setting up your FTP client to connect

Setup procedures vary by client, but in general you should go through the following steps:

1. Create a new regular FTP connection.
2. For the 'host' or 'server', enter the location of your FTP space
3. For the username and password, enter your username and password
4. For the 'initial directory', enter your web server's HTML directory
5. Save the connection settings so you can easily come back to do this again.
6. Connect for the first time

All of the clients listed above come with good documentation on how to create an FTP connection.

Downloading your media directories

Once you're connected, you should download your media directories to some location on your computer from which you can easily copy the downloaded data to backup media, such as a CD. For many people, the easiest download location is their desktop.

1. Connect to the FTP server
2. For each media directory, perform the following steps:
   1. Select the directory
   2. Download the directory. This is often accomplished by right-clicking (or control-clicking, on a Mac) the directory, then selecting "Download". Most FTP clients also provide a drag-and-drop interface, which lets you drag the folder directly to your desired location, whether your desktop or some other window.
3. Repeat this process for every media directory

If you have questions about operation of a specific FTP client, please refer to the documentation provided by the software.

That's it. Remember, if you ever have a catastrophic web server crash, we will need to restore both your database and your media. It is important to back up both.