VBulletin Backups

[Maxman1544]

My old backups were around 600 megs. Now recently they are under 40 megs. Did something change with a recent VB version (maybe they are compressed now) or do I have a problem?

I am running the backup manually through the admin panel.

Thanks!

[Steve Machol]

The only things that would account for that is either different backup methods, moving from the default vB search to fulltext search, and/or moving attachments and avatars from the database to the file system.

Note: The only reliable method of backing up and restoring a database is with shell access via telnet or ssh. This is because
backing up with a PHP script like that in the Admin CP or phpMyAdmin can result in PHP timeouts errors and an incomplete backup file. Please see the instructions here:

Backup:

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/maintenance_ssh_backup

Restore:

http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/maintenance_ssh_restore

P.S. Some people have reported success with these scripts:
MySQLDumper:

http://www.mysqldumper.de/en/index.php

MySQLHotxcopy:

http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=134821&highlight=mysqlhotcopy

Bigdump (restore only):

http://www.ozerov.de/bigdump.php