Best backup for Multisites

If you don’t have any other clients but yourself the Updraft is fine for multisite. The problem with updraft is mostly the fact that any user can see the complete database and files including the wp-config file.

If you’re renting or providing space to others then the better commercial plugin is part of your CODB.

Every couple months you’ll want to do a manual backup of the whole files system via FTP to a thumb drive or something and backup the whole database via PHPmyAdmin just to be safe.

Don’t trust your backup strategy to your web host. It’s good to have that host backup but sometimes a restore in the hands of a first-level support person will go awry and when you start talking multisite their second-level people will probably start ‘sputtering’ and choking.

Hello multisite users
Thank you to @jnashhawkins for his helpful reply. I’m sorry to take so long replying. It’s a busy time of year for me.
I reconnected my subdomain to Updraft Plus, which I was formerly running on my single site. Then I tried to restore that single site into my multisite. Result: the site and its dashboard are now unreachable, unreadable, uneditable.
I think the problem was that the first site was called christmascantata.com. And the new site is christmascantata.brightmorningtstar.org.
What’s annoying is that I had already restored the site thru the WP export/import function. There was a lot missing, but I was getting there. But now it’s all gone.
Any idea how I can get it back to what it was 10 or 15 minutes ago?

You need to step lightly when making unfamiliar changes… one change at a time.

How do you or did you connect a subdomain to UpdraftPlus? Do you mean you pointed the subdomain at the old site that had the domain on it originally? Or is the subdomain pointed at the multisite?

I need to think about this and hear from you or figure this out the best I can from what I can see. I may have a few notes here to help me also from last week.

My blood sugar is dropping so I need to eat and dinner is another 20 minutes… I’m not thinking as clearly as I should be right now (dang diabetes) and I have an errand to run after dinner. Be patient with me I might be slow getting back to you but I will.

I’ll be back later this evening.

Okay, is BrightMorningStar.org your multisite?

ChristmasCantata.com is your single site with the original content?

You want to import your content from ChristmasCantata.com to a subdomain on your multisite called ChristmasCantata.BrightMorningStar.org! Right?

You did an XML export of everything from ChristmasCantata.com to your local PC. I’m hoping that’s a good import.

For some reason, ChristmasCantata.BrightMorningStar.org redirects to ChristmasCantana.com… ChristmasCantata.com doesn’t work.

I was expecting to see a list of plugins on BrightMorningStar.org as I thought that should be your ‘multisite network’ also from our earlier conversations. I really think your UpDraftPlus should be there… but that’s not important until the rest of this works well.

Thank @jnashhawkins Sorry for slow reply. Crazy busy time of year. The history is this.
(1) I had a site called christmascantata.com. It was backing up to my Dropbox with Updraft Plus. But I had another site too (brightmorningstar.org). And I felt I would be better managing them as a multisite. So, in addition to Updraft Plus, I also backed up thru the WP export function.
(2) So I set up the multisite, with which you most kindly helped me. The main site stayed as brightmorningstar.org, while christmascantata.com became christmascantata.brightmorningstar.org. Then I pointed the domain name (christmascantata.com) at that subdomain.
(3) Then I tried to restore the old christmascantata site thru the WP import function. It restored the text and pages, but not the images. I made some progress putting the images back in. But then it occurred to me that I might get a better job from Updraft Plus.
(4) So I installed the single-site version of Updraft Plus in Network admin. (I figured that if wp.com users can use it on single sites, then so could I.) Then I installed it in the christmascantata subdomain (cc.bms.org) then tried to restore that site from my Dropbox, with the result that we now have. Visiting the site and trying to access it thru the dashboard are both impossible (“This site can’t be reached.”). But if you click to a link to one of the pages, you see a mangled version of the original.
(5) I’ve been looking for a Network Admin function to access Post Revisions for the subdomain (cc.bms.org). But I can’t find one. Is there such a thing?
Hopefully….