How backups work on your AndroHost server

A guide to what AndroHost backs up for you, what you back up for yourself, and how to roll back to a known-good state when something goes wrong.

You can read this in five minutes. The mechanics in your panel take about thirty seconds to learn.

What we cover automatically

Every paid AndroHost server runs on infrastructure that takes nightly snapshots of the entire server (world files, configs, plugins, mods, everything in the server's filesystem). Those snapshots are written to two physically separate locations: one local to your game server's host, and one off-site at our secondary facility. We retain enough copies to recover from problems noticed days or weeks later.

You don't have to think about this. It happens automatically and it covers the disasters our infrastructure can fail at: a disk dies, a server room loses power, a misconfiguration takes down a host. We can put your world back the way it was at the most recent snapshot, no input needed from you.

What this layer does NOT protect against:

• You running /op someone and them griefing the world. The backup captured the griefed world too if it ran after the damage.
• A plugin or mod silently corrupting world state. By the time you notice, the corruption is in the snapshot.
• Accidentally deleting a player's house through your own action.

For those, you need backups you control. Which brings us to the panel.

Backups in the panel

Your panel at panel.androhost.com has a Backups tab on every server. This is your direct control over restore points.

Each snapshot is a compressed archive of your entire server volume. They live in our off-host backup storage, NOT on your game server's disk. If your server's disk has a problem, your panel backups survive.

Taking a backup right now

1. Open your server in the panel.
2. Backups tab → Create backup.
3. Name it something memorable. "Before installing Big Mod Pack" beats "backup1".
4. Wait. A few minutes for a small Minecraft world, longer for a heavily-modded server with a big map. The panel shows progress.
5. Done. The snapshot appears in the list and is now stored off-host.

When to take a manual backup: before installing or updating a mod, before letting a new admin near /op, before any "this should be fine" change. Manual snapshots cost nothing and the friction is one click.

Scheduling automatic backups

For a server you don't want to think about, set a schedule:

1. Server → Schedules tab → + Create schedule.
2. Name: "Daily backup".
3. Cron: 0 4 * * * (4 AM every day; pick whatever low-traffic hour fits your community).
4. Add a task: Create backup, name it auto-{date} or similar.
5. Save.

Now every day at the configured time the panel snapshots your server. Combine with manual snapshots before risky changes and you have a real safety net.

How many can I keep

Your plan determines this. Paid plans include enough retention for a daily snapshot to stick around for a couple of weeks before the oldest rolls off. If you need more, take fewer scheduled backups (e.g., weekly instead of daily) or download the ones that matter long-term to your own machine before they expire.

Downloading a backup

Each snapshot in the list has a Download button. The archive is a standard .tar.gz you can:

• Save to your own computer or NAS for long-term keep.
• Unpack and inspect locally without touching the live server.
• Re-upload elsewhere if you ever migrate.

This is the "off-site copy you control" piece of the 3-2-1 rule. We give you the two locations on our end. The third copy is the one only you have.

Restoring

The whole reason you take backups.

Restore a panel snapshot

1. Server → Backups tab.
2. Find the snapshot you want.
3. Click Restore.
4. Confirm the warning (this will overwrite your current server state).
5. Wait. The panel stops your server, replaces its filesystem with the snapshot, and starts it again. Players will be kicked during the swap.

Restore time scales with backup size. A small vanilla server is back in under a minute. A modded server with a 10 GB world might take five.

What if the whole AndroHost panel is down

You don't need to do anything. Our team handles that side of the failure. When the panel comes back, your servers come back, and your backups are exactly where you left them. The off-site copy means even a total loss at our primary site doesn't lose data, just takes us a bit longer to restore from.

What if my server was deleted from your end

If you've cancelled your subscription and your server has been removed: as long as you downloaded a backup before cancellation, that .tar.gz is yours forever and can be uploaded to any Pterodactyl-based host (including ours when you come back). If you didn't download anything: our retention windows on the panel side are designed to give you a grace period after cancellation, but they're not infinite. Always download a final backup if you're ending service and might want to come back.

A few common questions

Are backups encrypted?

The off-site copy is encrypted at rest. The in-flight transfer is over a private link, not the public internet. Your downloaded archive is unencrypted (because it has to be readable when you unpack it), so if you keep long-term copies on your own NAS, encryption of that local copy is your responsibility.

Do you read my backups?

No. They exist as opaque archives until you (or you with our help) restore them. We don't open them, we don't index their contents.

Can I restore to a different server?

Yes, with help. Open a ticket and we can copy a backup from one of your servers to another one you own. The backup format is portable across servers running the same egg (Minecraft to Minecraft, Valheim to Valheim, etc.).

My server disappeared after a Wings node failure. Are my world saves gone?

No. World saves are protected by the same backup layer that protects everything else. If your server's host died between backups, you might lose changes from the last few hours, but not the whole world.

Can I run backups while the server is online?

Yes. The panel takes a consistent snapshot of the running game server's files. Players notice a tiny pause (usually under a second on a healthy host), but the server stays up.

The short version

If you take one thing from this article: open your panel today and click Create backup on your most-important server. Then tomorrow do it again. After a week of doing this, you'll never wonder whether your world is protected.