The backup period currently is weekly which is pretty much the norm for most servers. I occasionally download the SQL database for the forum and keep a copy on my hard drive. The only reason I don't do it that often is because it takes a long time and ties up my PC. But after this I think I will start doing it more often. That should prevent the forum history being lost .... but I have never had to try bringing it back before. While it will probably work fine I won't really know until I try, which I don't want to do unless I have to. When there is a server backup that can be used I leave it to that. I just get paranoid in case the server backup is not good.

But I think I will put the donations I have been getting towards buying a USB HD just for backing up forum files. I will just get a 500 GB drive which will work just fine and doesn't cost too much and provides plenty of storage space for backups.