I'm sure a lot of people on here use Softsys to host their Umbraco sites. I have been frantically developing a site for a friend the past few days and managed to delete half the site accidentally before backing up.
They have a restore service which seems great but comes at a cost of $50. I just wondered if anyone has had a better experience with a different hosting company or is this standard practice? Or maybe even a good price?
I also use Softsys and have a VPS with them as a development server.
Ouch, on the delete.. what exactly did you delete, there is a chance if it's database related that you could get it back, but to be honest if Softsys are able to do a restore for $50 it might be worth just doing that compared with the amount of time it might take you to write custom SQL queries etc.
As Slace mentioned, I would advise trying to develop locally and to use a source control server to keep a couple of your solution, this will save you a lot of headaches in the long run :)
I wouldn't recommend changing hosting provider, I would just put it down to a lesson learnt and be glad they are able to restore for you, you might also thing of setting up a simple batch script that allows you to backup your files and DB files, you can then copy these onto a local FTP server and pull them down to your local machine on a regular basis, which at least will give you an "off server" backup of your own.
Agree with slace here - develop locally and do regular backups of db and files.
As for the hosting question, it's common with the cheaper hosts, purely as this is where they claw back some cash for their cheap deals. You can pick up a cheap virtual servers for little money at the moment or go with a more reliable host that may cost a little more but you get more in return (better support, automated backup systems that you can control etc
How exactly did you accidentally delete half of your site? Did you right-click in the content tree and click "Delete" by accident, did you blow away records in the database or something else?
David, what was deleted? if it was the umbraco directories these should be easy to recover. Also, depending on when the deletion occured SofySys may not have a recent backup (i think they do them nightly?).
If it is a simple site and you still have the masterpages, CSS and XSLT directories it may be just as quick to start again (locally).
The $50 fee is a fair price in my opinion and it probably cheaper to pay it, assuming the backup was recent enough, rather than spend the time fixing it yourself. I would be surprised if there are other providers who would not charge for this.
The backup service is usually dependent on the server/hosting package you sign up for: some GoDaddy hosting for example comes with various back up options, and sometimes you can pay for specific back up retrieval.
I can't say that price is extortionate, some data retrieval companies will try and take and arm and a leg, but I have so far been fortunate to not require this for myself yet (touches wood).
Moving forward, if you are developing multiple sites and doing this on a regular basis,it's probably best you develop locally, and then push the files up as you need them, using a form of version control
I would say that $50 is not that bad a price, if the files that you accidentally deleted where custom files, that you created durring the development of the site. I'm thinking of files that's not a part of the Umbraco installation - you know files like XSLT's, dll's, masterpages, user controls etc. Think about how long time it would take to write all of those files once again. Depending on the complexity of the files it could probably easy take hours and hours.
But of course it's up to you. I think I would pay the $50 and then just go on with the project.
I'm sorry but I haven't got that much experience with Umrbaco hosting companies outside of Denmark (but I've herd some good things of Softsys actually), but if you don't care where in the word the site is hosted I can recommend UnoEuro from Denmark. I've used them a couple of times, and they are first of all very stable, and then they have a great support.
for the most hosters it is usual practice to charge for additional services. You made a fault which we all made (except some australian guys ;-)). I just deleted some css of our websites last week. So to be save it make backups before change something. The most hosters have some additional ftp backup storage for low money where you can use own scripts to make bak files from the database and zip files from the content to save via ftp.
Another great tool to have a dev environment and published one is umbraco courier which you can find on www.umbraco.org
Softsys hosting - $50 fee to restore accidentally deteled files
Hi Folks,
I'm sure a lot of people on here use Softsys to host their Umbraco sites. I have been frantically developing a site for a friend the past few days and managed to delete half the site accidentally before backing up.
They have a restore service which seems great but comes at a cost of $50. I just wondered if anyone has had a better experience with a different hosting company or is this standard practice? Or maybe even a good price?
The main thing your doing wrong is developing on the hosting environment. Develop locally and use source control.
Problem solved.
Hi David,
I also use Softsys and have a VPS with them as a development server.
Ouch, on the delete.. what exactly did you delete, there is a chance if it's database related that you could get it back, but to be honest if Softsys are able to do a restore for $50 it might be worth just doing that compared with the amount of time it might take you to write custom SQL queries etc.
As Slace mentioned, I would advise trying to develop locally and to use a source control server to keep a couple of your solution, this will save you a lot of headaches in the long run :)
I wouldn't recommend changing hosting provider, I would just put it down to a lesson learnt and be glad they are able to restore for you, you might also thing of setting up a simple batch script that allows you to backup your files and DB files, you can then copy these onto a local FTP server and pull them down to your local machine on a regular basis, which at least will give you an "off server" backup of your own.
Good luck :)
Best regards,
Chris
Agree with slace here - develop locally and do regular backups of db and files.
As for the hosting question, it's common with the cheaper hosts, purely as this is where they claw back some cash for their cheap deals. You can pick up a cheap virtual servers for little money at the moment or go with a more reliable host that may cost a little more but you get more in return (better support, automated backup systems that you can control etc
Good luck
Si
How exactly did you accidentally delete half of your site? Did you right-click in the content tree and click "Delete" by accident, did you blow away records in the database or something else?
--
Donald
David, what was deleted? if it was the umbraco directories these should be easy to recover. Also, depending on when the deletion occured SofySys may not have a recent backup (i think they do them nightly?).
If it is a simple site and you still have the masterpages, CSS and XSLT directories it may be just as quick to start again (locally).
The $50 fee is a fair price in my opinion and it probably cheaper to pay it, assuming the backup was recent enough, rather than spend the time fixing it yourself. I would be surprised if there are other providers who would not charge for this.
Hi David,
The backup service is usually dependent on the server/hosting package you sign up for: some GoDaddy hosting for example comes with various back up options, and sometimes you can pay for specific back up retrieval.
http://help.godaddy.com/article/5661
I can't say that price is extortionate, some data retrieval companies will try and take and arm and a leg, but I have so far been fortunate to not require this for myself yet (touches wood).
Moving forward, if you are developing multiple sites and doing this on a regular basis,it's probably best you develop locally, and then push the files up as you need them, using a form of version control
Github https://github.com/ and Subversion http://subversion.apache.org/ are popular and you can then keep backups of code
Hi there David.
I would say that $50 is not that bad a price, if the files that you accidentally deleted where custom files, that you created durring the development of the site. I'm thinking of files that's not a part of the Umbraco installation - you know files like XSLT's, dll's, masterpages, user controls etc. Think about how long time it would take to write all of those files once again. Depending on the complexity of the files it could probably easy take hours and hours.
But of course it's up to you. I think I would pay the $50 and then just go on with the project.
I'm sorry but I haven't got that much experience with Umrbaco hosting companies outside of Denmark (but I've herd some good things of Softsys actually), but if you don't care where in the word the site is hosted I can recommend UnoEuro from Denmark. I've used them a couple of times, and they are first of all very stable, and then they have a great support.
Let us know what you find out.
/Kim A
Hi David,
for the most hosters it is usual practice to charge for additional services. You made a fault which we all made (except some australian guys ;-)). I just deleted some css of our websites last week. So to be save it make backups before change something. The most hosters have some additional ftp backup storage for low money where you can use own scripts to make bak files from the database and zip files from the content to save via ftp.
Another great tool to have a dev environment and published one is umbraco courier which you can find on www.umbraco.org
But what did you kill? Content or Files?
Cheers, Thomas
softsys hosting is a disgusting hosting provider, i had terrible, terrible experience with them
*they dont have refund policy*
i bought a server, but to start a website with them was a terrible thing, becoz that vps did not have basic things to start a website
like dns management tool, control panel
they asked $50 per hour to help,
thats the 1 thing, if u get stuck up, then you will get screwd like anything
they got lot of hidden charges
is working on a reply...