# On-site backup frequency setting

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/on-site-backup-frequency-setting/31850
**Category:** Feature
**Tags:** backups
**Created:** [August 7, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/on-site-backup-frequency-setting/31850 "2015-08-07T00:42:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 5
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![meglio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/meglio/32/71444_2.png) [@meglio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/meglio)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2015, 12:42am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/on-site-backup-frequency-setting/31850/1 "2015-08-07T00:42:32Z")

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For the smallest DigitalOcean instance, backups are eating quite a lot - with 7 days backup, I give up 50% of the space just for backups.

Yet I’d still like to have old backups.

The proposition is to make backup frequency configurable. I’d set it to once every 2 days (instead of once every day by default) and save another few GBs - this would free more space for uploads and save me from upgrading my DO instance for another 3-5 months, so literally it would save some $$$.

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2015, 1:52am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/on-site-backup-frequency-setting/31850/2 "2015-08-07T01:52:10Z")

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Not a bad idea, @zogstrip what do you think? It is one more site setting but it might be easy and useful.

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### Author: ![fefrei](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/fefrei/32/119538_2.png) [@fefrei](https://meta.discourse.org/u/fefrei)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2015, 9:08am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/on-site-backup-frequency-setting/31850/3 "2015-08-07T09:08:34Z")

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Even better – albeit a lot more effort – would be a (configurable) staged setting, like this: Do hourly backups, but keep only two of them; in addition, keep one per day for five days, and a weekly backup for a month.

Simply making the interval configurable would at least make it easier to simulate this with external backup software: Let Discourse take hourly backups (keep only one or two), and backup the backup directory with an external software that offers more flexibility.

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### Author: ![zogstrip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/zogstrip/32/512781_2.png) [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/on-site-backup-frequency-setting/31850/4 "2015-08-07T15:36:41Z")

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I changed the `backup_daily?` site setting to the more generic `backup_frequency` 📅

[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/15418f3d44df7c248ebdb1239092e0aa676b3947](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/15418f3d44df7c248ebdb1239092e0aa676b3947)

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### Author: ![zogstrip](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/zogstrip/32/512781_2.png) [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [August 7, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/on-site-backup-frequency-setting/31850/5 "2015-08-07T15:36:44Z")

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