Preparing for Catastrophic Failure

Webservers are computers. Granted they are very large computers, but just comuters all the same. And much like your desktop PC they are subject to crashes. Some failures may require a simple system reboot. Others failures can be devastating. For example, a server can be hacked, suffer power surges, or catch fire. These things don't happen often, but they do happen. In such events data can be corrupted or totally lost. Which means all your website files are gone, forever. Don't let this happen to you. If you are a DIY web site administrator, you should prepare yourself for catastrophic failure of your web host's server.
Things you should back up

1. Your site.
   This includes all your HTML, CSS, scripts and images. More than likely you already have these things backed up on your own PC. That's good. But take it a step forward and save everything to CDs or other portable storage devices.
2. Your databases.
   If you run a forum or blog you have a database backend. You may also have a database simply for your newsletter contacts. These need to be regularly backed up. If your blog or forum generates a lot of posts, you may want to back them up daily or even hourly. Again, save a copy to your PC and one to disk.
3. Server stats.
   You may not have thought about this bit of your website. Server stats are very important to your overall marketing of your site. Keeping records of your visitors helps you see trends in user behavior. The more stats you have, the better a picture of your users you can define. Back up your logs on a regular basis, making sure not to overwrite or erase previous logs.
4. Server settings.
   your cronjobs and .htaccess files are also a part of how your site operates. If you need to move your site to a new server, you will have to re-install these items so that the site continues to function properly.
5. Site settings.
   Don't forget to make notes of your email accounts, email admin settings (blackholes and catchalls) and your spam setting and filters if you have these.

Of course we all hope that we never need to use these things.