Daily Off-site Backups: adding and restoring
Daily Off-site Backups is an optional upgrade that copies your whole server to separate cloud storage every day and keeps the last 7. This guide covers when you need it, how to add it and how to restore from it.
7 min read · Updated Oct 6, 2026 · By GuavaHost Team
Quick backups and off-site backups
Your server can have two kinds of backup, and they do different jobs.
Quick backups are the free backups you make yourself on the Backups page. They are stored on the same machine as your server, so they are quick to take and quick to restore. Make one before you add a plugin, change settings or update, and if something breaks you can roll straight back. Each plan has its own number of quick backup slots, and some plans have none.
Off-site backups come with the Daily Off-site Backups upgrade, made for servers you can't afford to lose. Every day the whole server is copied to separate cloud storage (Cloudflare R2), away from the machine it runs on, and the last 7 copies are kept. If something goes wrong with that machine itself, your off-site backups are stored somewhere else, so it cannot take them with it.
| Quick backups | Off-site backups | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free with your plan | $4.99 a month per server |
| Where they are kept | On the same machine as your server | On separate cloud storage, away from that machine |
| When they are made | When you click Create backup, or on a schedule you set up | Automatically every day, and whenever you click Back up off-site now |
| How many you keep | Your plan's quick backup slots | The last 7 |
| Restoring | Fast | A little slower, because the backup is downloaded back first |
| Best for | Rolling back a risky change | A server you can't afford to lose |
Use quick backups as your everyday safety net before changes. Add off-site backups when losing the server would really hurt, such as a world your group has spent months on or a community server with its own economy. The two work well together: a quick backup right before each change, and a daily off-site copy in the background.
What off-site backups do and don't do
Off-site backups:
- Copy every file on your server once a day: worlds, configs, plugins, mods and their data. The server keeps running while it happens.
- Keep the last 7 copies. Older ones are removed automatically as new ones arrive.
- Have their own space, so they never use up your quick backup slots.
- Can be downloaded, restored, locked or deleted from the Backups page, just like quick backups.
They don't:
- Replace a quick backup right before a change. The newest off-site copy can be up to a day old, so take a quick backup, or click Back up off-site now, just before you change something.
- Include MySQL databases from the Databases page. Those live on a separate database server, so export them with your plugin's own tools if you need a copy. See Setting up a MySQL database.
- Stop someone with access to your server from deleting them. Anyone who can delete backups on your server can delete these too, so for a world you would hate to lose, still download a copy to your own computer now and then.
- Outlive the server itself. If the server is cancelled, its backups go with it when it shuts down (see Cancelling off-site backups below).
Adding off-site backups
Daily Off-site Backups costs $4.99 a month for each server, or the equivalent in your account's currency. It is billed monthly as an add-on, separately from your plan.
- Sign in at customer.guavahost.com, open My servers and click Manage on your server.
- Open Backups in the server menu and click Add off-site backups. (It is also listed under Optional add-ons in Manage plan, where you click Add to server.)
- Check the price in the Add to your server window and click Continue to billing.
- Check the total and pay.
Ordering a new server? Open Optional extras on the Server step of checkout and tick Daily Off-site Backups, and your server starts out with it.
The upgrade switches on within a few minutes of being paid for (on a new server, once it has finished installing). Until the first off-site backup starts, the Off-site backups section on the Backups page shows that it is setting up. From then on, a new copy is made about every 24 hours.
Add-ons can only be added while the server is active and has no cancellation scheduled, and only by the account that owns it.
Making an off-site backup now
You don't have to wait for the daily copy. Click Back up off-site now in the Off-site backups section to start one straight away, for example just before a big update.
- You can do this up to 3 times a day, at most once an hour, and not while another off-site backup is still being made.
- It counts as one of the 7 that are kept, so making several in a day means the oldest copies are removed sooner.
- It also counts as that day's copy, so the next daily backup follows about 24 hours later.
- Only the server's owner can use it.
Downloading, locking and deleting
Each backup in the Off-site backups section has the same buttons as a quick backup:
- Download saves a copy on your own computer.
- Restore puts your server back to how it was when the backup was taken. The next section walks through it.
- Lock keeps a backup safe. A locked backup is never removed to make room for a newer one, and it cannot be deleted until you click Unlock. Lock any copy you want to hold on to, such as the last one from before a problem, because otherwise the oldest copy is removed each time a new one arrives.
- Delete removes the backup for good. Your live server and its files are not affected.
Restoring an off-site backup
Restoring puts your server back to how it was when that backup was taken.
- Open Backups in the server menu.
- In the Off-site backups section, find the backup you want and click Restore.
- Choose what happens to files added since that backup:
- Keep them: recommended. Only files that are in the backup are put back, and anything newer is left alone.
- Also delete files added since this backup: a clean restore, so the server ends up exactly as it was. Use this to completely undo a mod or plugin install.
- Type
RESTORE, then click Restore backup (or Restore and delete newer files) to confirm. - The server shows Restoring backup while it works and restarts when it is done.
An off-site restore takes a little longer than a quick one, because the backup is downloaded back to the machine first. Bigger servers take longer.
Important: restoring overwrites your current files with the contents of the backup. Anything changed since that backup was taken is lost. If you are not totally sure, take a quick backup of the current state first, so you can get back to it if you change your mind.
Cancelling off-site backups
To stop the upgrade but keep your server, contact support through guavahost.com/support or Discord and ask us to cancel Daily Off-site Backups. Download any off-site backup you want to keep first.
Once the upgrade ends:
- No new off-site backups are made.
- Your existing off-site backups are kept for 7 days, then deleted, locked ones included.
- If you add the upgrade again within those 7 days, they are kept and the daily copies carry on.
- Your quick backups are not affected.
If you cancel the server itself, the upgrade ends with it. When the server shuts down, its files are deleted and its backups go with them, off-site ones included, so download anything you want to keep before then. How to Cancel a Server walks through it.
Common questions
Can I choose what time the daily backup runs? No. The first one runs a few minutes after the upgrade switches on, and each one after that about 24 hours after the last. When you want a copy at a particular moment, click Back up off-site now.
Does my server go offline during an off-site backup? No. It keeps running and players can stay on. A daily backup waits while the server is suspended, installing, moving to another location or restoring a backup, and runs once it is back to normal.
What if an off-site backup fails? It is tried again about an hour later, and the failed copy is cleared away after a day. If it keeps failing, contact support.
My plan has no quick backup slots. Can I still add off-site backups? Yes. Off-site backups have room for 7 of their own, whatever your plan's quick backup slots are.
I have several servers. Do I need it on every one? It is added per server, at $4.99 a month each, so add it to the servers you can't afford to lose and keep quick backups for the rest.
Related guides
- Backups: creating, restoring and scheduling
- How Often Should You Back Up a Game Server?
- How to Cancel a Server
Still stuck? Jump into our Discord at discord.gg/GuavaHost and the team will help you out.
- backups
- off-site backups
- daily backups
- restore
- add-ons
- disaster recovery
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