You’ve spent countless hours over the past year building up your blog. Adding content, getting links, gaining recognition…

So what happens when you’re web host’s database gets fried, and much to your chagrin you don’t have a backup?

Well, hopefully that will never happen. Hopefully your web host backs up its databases regularly. But that doesn’t mean you should trust them – you should do your own backing up.

Now, you could go into phpmyadmin and do this manually. You’d then have to store the backup on your hard drive, clear out the old ones, and make sure you’ve got the most recent ones. Manageable, but annoying.

One of the Most Useful Wordpress Plugins… Ever.

So get a Wordpress plugin to do it for you: Wordpress Database Backup.

I snagged this when I set up this blog, and I must say: It is awesome.

In the latest version of Wordpress, I click on Tools -> Backup in the dashboard to get to the Wordpress-DB Backup settings.

From there, you can either manually backup the DB and store it on your computer, or set the plug-in up to automatically backup the database at a regular interval. I’ve got it set up to backup the database every day and e-mail me the backup file.

Every day around midnight, I get an e-mail containing a thoroughly compressed .sql file with the current backup. All of my current content (~3.6mb unzipped) is about 500kb when it’s compressed. At that rate, I can leave it in my gmail archives forever and probably never have to worry about running out of space.

With the combination of Wordpress DB Backup and Gmail, I can easily store and sort my backups. I never have to worry about cleaning them up to make more space. And the chances of my web host’s database server and Gmail blowing up at the same time are kind of slim. I’d say that’s some pretty comforting security.

So what are you waiting for? If you aren’t backing up your database on a daily basis, grab this plug-in and set a schedule. If you don’t have a Gmail account, go sign up for one. It’s free, and I doubt you’ll ever run out of the 7gb+ storage space it provides.