Protect your VPS with automatic backups
Your VPS contains your applications, configurations, databases, and data. A bad update, accidental deletion, or security incident can undo hours or days of work.
Our backup service creates automatic daily backups stored separately from your server, giving you recovery options when things go wrong.
Some people call these “snapshots,” but they’re the same thing. We call them backups.
How it works
Every day, we create a complete backup of your entire VPS:
- Full disk image: Everything on your VPS is captured
- Automatic scheduling: Backups run daily without any action required
- Separate storage system: Backups are stored on a storage system that is separate from the ColossusCloud platform
- One-click restore: Restore your entire VPS from any available backup
If something goes wrong (a bad update, accidental deletion, security incident) you can roll back to a previous state.
Where backups are stored
Backups are stored on a dedicated storage system that is not part of the ColossusCloud VPS platform. This means a problem with the VPS infrastructure won’t affect your backups.
These backups are stored in the same data center where your VPS is located. They are not kept off-site. If you need off-site copies for disaster recovery or compliance reasons, we recommend maintaining your own copies in a separate location.
Backup plans
We offer two backup plans for VPS hosting:
Plan 1: 4-day retention
Our lowest-cost backup plan keeps the last 4 days of daily backups.
- 4 recovery points: Restore from any of the last 4 days
- 2 permanent backups included: Create up to 2 permanent backups you can keep indefinitely
- Ideal for: Development servers, testing environments, applications where recent backups are sufficient
Plan 2: 30-day retention
For production workloads where you need more recovery options:
- 30 recovery points: Restore from any of the last 30 days
- 10 permanent backups included: Create up to 10 permanent backups you can keep indefinitely
- Ideal for: Production applications, e-commerce sites, databases where you might need to recover data from weeks ago
Permanent backups
Beyond automated daily backups, you can create permanent backups at any time. These are included with your backup plan (2 with Plan 1, 10 with Plan 2) at no additional cost.
Permanent backups:
- Never expire: They stay until you delete them
- On-demand creation: Create one whenever you want to preserve your current state
- Deployable: Use a backup to deploy new VPS instances
- Multiple allowed: Keep several backups for different purposes (pre-upgrade, known-good configs, templates)
Use cases for permanent backups
Before major changes
About to upgrade your OS or deploy a major application update? Create a backup first. If something breaks, you have a known-good state to return to.
Server templates
Configure a VPS exactly how you want it (your preferred OS settings, installed software, security hardening) then back it up. Deploy new servers from that backup instead of configuring from scratch every time.
Clone your environment
Need a staging server that matches production? Back up your production VPS and deploy a new VPS from that backup. Instant clone.
Deploy to a different region (coming soon)
A planned feature that will allow you to deploy a new VPS from a permanent backup that was created in a different data center.
Managing backups
All backup management happens in ServerPoint’s Client Portal:
- View available backups and their dates
- Restore your VPS from any daily or permanent backup
- Create new permanent backups
- Deploy new VPS instances from permanent backups
- Delete permanent backups you no longer need
Daily backups can only be used to restore your existing VPS. To deploy a new VPS from a backup, you need to create a permanent backup first. Daily backups are managed automatically by the system and rotate out based on your plan’s retention period (4 or 30 days).
What gets backed up
Our backups capture your entire VPS disk:
- Operating system and all installed packages
- Application code and configurations
- Databases (MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB, etc.)
- User files and directories
- System settings and cron jobs
Everything on your VPS disk is included. Nothing to configure, nothing to exclude.
A note about databases
Databases present a special challenge for disk-level backups. If a database is actively writing data when the backup runs, the backup might capture the database in an inconsistent state.
To protect against this, we recommend two things:
-
Configure your database to flush to disk frequently. Most databases have settings that control how often data is written from memory to disk. More frequent flushing means less data at risk.
-
Set up a daily database dump. We suggest using tools like mysqldump (for MySQL/MariaDB) or pg_dump (for PostgreSQL) to create a consistent export of your database at least once a day. Store these dumps on your VPS disk, and our backup service will capture them automatically.
This way, even if the live database files are in an inconsistent state, you have a clean dump file to restore from.
Backups are not downloadable
For security reasons, backups are not available for download. Our staff cannot provide direct access to backup files.
Daily backups can only be used to restore your VPS. Permanent backups can be used to restore your VPS or to deploy a new VPS instance. If you need downloadable copies of your data, we suggest installing third-party backup software on your VPS that uploads to a destination you control (such as Amazon S3, Backblaze B2, or your own storage server).
What backups don’t replace
Backups are essential, but they’re one part of a complete data protection strategy:
- Application-level backups: For databases, consider also using mysqldump or pg_dump for portable backups you control
- Off-site copies: Our backups are stored in the same data center as your VPS. For critical data, we recommend maintaining copies in a separate location
- Downloadable copies: If you need to download and store backups yourself, we suggest using third-party backup software
- Version control: We recommend keeping your code in Git, not just on your server
Our VPS backups protect against infrastructure failures, accidental changes, and quick recovery needs. For business-critical data, layer additional backup strategies on top.
Pricing
Backup pricing is based on your VPS size and the plan you choose (4-day or 30-day retention). View current pricing in ServerPoint’s Client Portal when adding backup service to your VPS.
Permanent backups are included with your backup plan at no additional cost. Plan 1 includes 2 permanent backups, Plan 2 includes 10.
Explore our VPS plans and add backup protection to your servers.