Backing up your WordPress site is a necessity, but it can be hard to find an affordable, easy-to-implement solution that covers all the bases. I’m always on the hunt for the best solution, and the method presented here is just one of several possible solutions.

Here are some of my ideal criteria for a backup solution:

1. Ability to back up both database and files
2. Ability to schedule these backups separately – I haven’t found too many situations where a full file backup is needed as frequently as the database backup
3. Offers backup to an off-site 3rd party. You don’t want to keep backups on your server because if something goes wrong with the server, your backups could be screwed.Backups sent via email are usually only realistic for the database, full site backups tend to get too large to email.

One of my newest favorite solutions is to backup to a free DropBox account. With Dropbox you can get 2GB of storage for free which will keep you going for a while, and should you run out, you can easily delete old backups.

I’ve been using a free plugin called Back WP Up  to accomplish this. It meets all three of my criteria above. The options panel may look a bit overwhelming to newbies so here’s a brief walk through it.