VPS Hosting With Offsite Backups Included: What Good Looks Like

RemarkableCloud Team

Do VPS plans normally include backups?

Usually not in any meaningful sense. Across the VPS market, backups are the most common paid add-on: typically 20 to 25 percent of the server price for weekly copies, sometimes daily at a higher tier. Plans that do “include backups” often mean snapshots stored on the same storage cluster as the server itself, which protects you from your own mistakes but not from the failure of the infrastructure holding both the server and its copy.

That distinction, where the backup physically lives, is the difference between a backup and a convenience feature. The industry shorthand is the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of your data, on two different types of storage, with at least one copy offsite. A snapshot on the host’s own SAN is one copy, one storage type, zero offsite.

What does a real VPS backup architecture look like?

It looks like layers with different failure domains, so no single event can take out the data and all its copies at once. Every RemarkableCloud managed VPS ships with three layers included in the plan price:

• Daily snapshots on the platform: instant restore points for the fast, common cases, a bad update, a broken deploy, an accidental deletion. Restores measure in minutes because the data never left the cluster.
• Offsite copy one: Proxmox Backup Server (PBS). Incremental, deduplicated, verified backups on separate infrastructure. PBS verification jobs re-read and checksum stored backups on schedule, so a corrupted backup is discovered by the system, not by you at 2 a.m. during a restore.
• Offsite copy two: S3 object storage. A second, independent offsite target on a different storage technology. If a restore path ever fails, the same data exists somewhere with nothing in common with the first copy.

Snapshots cover speed. PBS covers integrity. S3 covers paranoia. Together they satisfy 3-2-1 without you configuring anything, because the architecture ships enabled on every plan.

Why does “verified” matter more than “daily”?

Because an unverified backup is a hope, not a plan. The classic backup failure is not a missed job; it is a job that ran green for months while writing copies that cannot actually restore, discovered only during the emergency they existed for. Verification means the backup system re-reads what it stored, validates checksums, and alerts on mismatch while there is still time to fix the chain.

This is also why “we back up your server” claims deserve one follow-up question: when did you last restore one? Our answer is routine, because restores are a normal support operation here, not an escalation. Files, databases, or the full server, restored from backup by the team that manages the system.

What should offsite backups cost on a managed VPS?

Nothing beyond the plan, and we mean that as a market position, not a promo. Backup is not a feature you should be able to unselect to save money, because the customers who unselect it are exactly the ones who will need it. On every RemarkableCloud plan, from the smallest to the largest, daily snapshots and both offsite targets are part of the price, next to the managed firewall, monitoring, the mail gateway, and the 500% SLA.

For comparison, price a typical unmanaged VPS honestly: server, plus the backup add-on, plus your time configuring and testing restore paths, plus the risk that the copy lives one rack away from the original. The sticker price gap with managed hosting shrinks fast, and the 3 a.m. gap inverts entirely.

How do I check my current host’s backup story?

Ask four questions and accept only specific answers. Where do backups physically live relative to my server? How often do they run, and what is retained? Are they verified automatically, and how would I know if verification failed? What is the restore process at 3 a.m. on a Sunday, and who performs it?

If the answers involve an add-on price, a shared failure domain, or “you can restore via the panel yourself”, you have found your migration reason. Ours is simpler: every managed VPS plan includes the full stack above, migration in is free, and the first restore you ever request will be performed by a human who has done thousands.

FAQ

Are daily snapshots enough on their own?

No. Snapshots typically live on the same storage as the server, so they protect against your mistakes but not against infrastructure failure, and their retention is short. Snapshots are the fast layer of a backup strategy, never the whole strategy.

What is the difference between PBS and S3 backups?

Proxmox Backup Server stores incremental, deduplicated, verified backups and is the primary offsite restore path. S3 object storage is the second, independent offsite copy on a different storage technology. Two targets exist so that no single system’s failure, including the backup system’s own, can leave you without a copy.

Can I restore a single file, or only the whole server?

Both. File-level and database-level restores are routine support operations, and full-server restores cover the disaster cases. Open a ticket with what you need and the team handles the restore; you are never left alone with a panel and a prayer.