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Hey, When you select "twice daily" and then select a time (say 3 am), when does the &

Hey,

1. When you select “twice daily” and then select a time (say 3 am), when does the “second” snapshot occur after the first one set for 3am?

I assume 12 hours from 3 am (i.e. 3pm)?

Let me know how that would work.

2. Does doing snapshots really slow down the server or can one schedule them without worrying about that anytime during the day?

3. I would have multiple subsites being scheduled. Is is ok to schedule them all at the same time (i.e. 3 am twice daily)? Please let me know how that would work and a bit of the dynamics going on? Sidenote on this section: What if you have hundreds or thousands of subsites as well (any issues with scheduling and times etc)?

:slight_smile:

Best,

Sat, 25 Apr 2015 19:01:40
More Snapshot Pro discussions
Snapshot Pro
  • Michelle Shull
    • DEV MAN’s Apprentice

    Hi, Greg!

    1. Yes. The snapshots will be taken 12 hours apart.

    2. Yes. Taking a backup is extremely resource intensive. You should schedule it only for low-traffic times. Even with the best possible server config, taking a backup is going to hit your database several hundred times per second, that’s going to take server power.

    3. No, you should not take snapshots of all your subsites at the same time, because, as I mentioned above, it’s very resource intensive.

    3b. With hundreds of thousands of sites (are these all on the same server??) you’d probably crash your site if you tried to back them up simultaneously.

    Hope this helps

  • Greg
    • Smushie Pies

    @Michelle Shull

    Ok. What is are the practices for scheduling multiple automatic subsites with snapshot as far as scheduling and running them in batches etc? Could, say, 5 or 10 be batched every 10 min. in the wee hours of the morning etc?

    Do you have some articles regarding this and snapshot that are good?

    What do folks who have tons of subsites do as far as with snapshot and automatic backups?

    :slight_smile:

  • Greg
    • Smushie Pies

    Also…what happens if you scheduled, say, 10 subsites for 2am? Will one begin the process and the other 9 stay in a queue and do only 1 at a time until finished? Seems like that is what it should be doing anyway vs. executing all 10 at one time. Please let me know on this as well. . .

    Then, if another batch of 10 is set for 3am if the 2 am batch is still running, the 3 am batch would just be place behind what is left, also in a queue?

    I am assuming no matter how many are scheduled, Snapshot will only do 1 at a time and then continue with the next one etc?

  • Michelle Shull
    • DEV MAN’s Apprentice

    Hey there, Greg

    Yep, Snapshot will only process one at a time, but staggering your backups is still a prudent idea. If your network is so large you’ll need to be doing constant backups, you may experience a slowdown.

    Also, just to be clear, you’re not doing full backups of each site each day, correct? You can do smaller snapshots, capturing only the newest information from that day, on a daily basis, and do full backups more infrequently. Unless you’re subsite admins are changing themes or plugins continuously, you should only need to snapshot files/folders/database tables that have changed.

    For example, on a busy site, there might be new posts, users, comments, and uploads happening frequently, but the site likely isn’t redoing their plugins every day, or redoing their theme. There’s no need to waste your resources backing up content you already have backed up. If you’re just trying to cover your bases just in case all the sites in your network completely change every day, that’s not the most efficient way to manage backups.

    Rule #1 of running a website (or network): Assume all resources are scarce and plan for efficiency. *

    Hope this helps!

    *This may not be technically rule #1, that should probably be security related, but even if you have apparently unlimited resources (which is unpossible), it’s still better to use them efficiently.