Backup to FTP

Basically, by storing backup to FTP, you protect it from any local sources of data loss. FTP protocol was designed specifically for transferring data on long distances over TCP/IP-based networks it is remarkable for its high reliability and efficiency. By transferring backup to FTP server, you ensure that you'll be able to restore it quickly and error free, either to an original place on your computer, or on any other machine.

When planning to back up to data to FTP, it is important to take into account several aspects. Firstly, the process of transferring backups to remote locations is not always secure: for most critical files it is recommended to use preliminary data encryption, or use protected protocols (such as SFTP). Secondly, the use of remote FTP servers is entailed with certain expenses: this may be either direct cost of offsite disk space rental, or indirect expenditures incurred by the use of Internet (in terms of traffic, bandwidth use, online time, etc.) Finally, not all backup software has an integrated FTP client and allows performing offiste backups easily.

Let's see how the process of backing up to FTP can be optimized (this also regards any other type of remote backup).

• Backup only data you need. Select data carefully and use filtering, to not waste resources for files that you'll never need to restore.
• Make incremental FTP backups. Incremental backup is an efficient backup method that assumes that each execution of a job copies only modifications that took place since the previous one. Of course, it works only to a situation when you back up regularly.
• Compress data before transferring. This is the most straightforward way to reduce both size occupied by backups on FTP and time required to upload them.

We hope that these basic aspects of FTP backup will help you to choose the right software, most suitable for the tasks you face. We welcome you to download and try out Handy Backup, the software that we produce.