How do you backup HUGE forums?

[dojo]

I already have one that's giving me headaches. The DB is 70 Mbs already ... do you use scripts that do this? How often do you make backups and how long does the process take?

[Dutch_Paratroopers]

use a cron job, that is the easiest and the fastes

[dojo]

meaning? ... cron job? ..

[Dutch_Paratroopers]

a cron job is a 'job' that is run automatically at a set interval (or time/date). If you are hosted on a *nix machine and you have cpanel than it should belisted somewhere in the list with options.

As a job you can run anything what you could also could do/run with the command line, like creating files, deleting files, mailing files, running files. So you could also run a *nix command to backup your database and than place it in a folder or mail it to you.

[cpvr]

I do it once a month, or whenever I feel it's necessary.

[dojo]

I started doing this more often and have to remember to do it ... The forums grow and I don't want to lose too many topics. I didn't yet use cron jobs, but since I'm in the cpanel quite frequently I remember to also back up ... and the download speed increased so it's OK

[Leo Ghost]

I usually use a cron job as well, though the bigger the site the harder it pulls on the server to do so. For huge sites it's usually best to store the database on a different server than the script files, which makes backing up easier. Having the load on two servers rather than one allows for everything to go faster in reality.