Let's have your web hosting horror stories...

[Michael Van Heffernan]

Let's kick off with mine!

Last month my website suddenly vanished so I contacted the provider by phone. I was assured there was nothing to worry about; lightening had hit the providers building and a power serge had burnt out the hard disk on the server. Nothing to worry about... And so I went to bed reasonably assured the site would be there in the morning.

08:15 there is a telephone call from my provider. 10 minutes of highly technically detailed explanation later I was left bewildered and wondering what he was on about. To cut through the BS started firing questions at him:

Me: Is there going to be more downtime?
Host: Yes.
Me: Is that because of the lightening?
Host: Yes.
Did you have a backup of your hard disk?
Host: Yes.
Me: Are you going to use the backup to get my site up and running again?
Host: No.
Do you have a backup?
Host: No
Me: Why not?
Host: The backup server was IN THE SAME BUILDING THAT GOT HIT BY LIGHTENING…
Me: Are you insane?
Host: Clinically…

It took weeks to get the back together again…Basically starting from scratch. Years of databases, specially designed interfaces, the works – all gone… Fortunately the host saw fit to pocket all the expenses and set up the site again, but that only really balanced out the lost revenue.

MVH

[WebEdit2]

...and professional!

[dannybedor]

Most providers do backup for their server purposes in case of crash or hardware failure and not to servicing each user accounts. Besides who can guarantee that their backup data was not corrupt?

Each user adviced to do their own backup. Mostly they put this notice in their TOS. So beware and take care your source codes well.

[Host Capacity]

That is a classic chat session and i bet they had yes and no in the canned comments so they didn't even have to type.

Unfortunately there are more and more hosts like this everyday.

[ASP-Hosting.ca]

Some hosting providers state explicitly that they do not make data backups and that the customer is responsible to make his own backups. Always make backups of your entire hosting account at least once a month. Most hosting control panels allow you to do that very easily.

[HMarker]

Michael,

You have rights to rely on the web hosting provider but in my opinion, customers should also have periodic backups on their own in order to 100% sure about having a secure backup.

[IceBlueHost]

Michael, I'm sorry to hear of your bad fortune with that host.
It is very unprofessional to have the backup server in the very same location as the other servers, a good data center should know things like that.

Most hosts do weekly backups of all their customer's sites, many even do daily backups. But even so, it is ALWAYS recommended that you back everything up yourself regularly. You might never need it, but as you have experienced yourself, things like this do happen sometimes and then it's nice to have your own backup.