Properly Back Up Drupal Databases

You should make regular back-ups of your Drupal database. One of the easiest ways of doing this is via PhpMyAdmin. Simply log-on, go to your database, click structure, scroll to the bottom, check the box and then select export.

Sometimes when exporting, your database might be larger than normal. For example, a database that is normally 7MB will jump up to 80MB!

If this happens, it's means the cache table need to be emptied. It's important to do this, otherwise, you might not be able to restore the back-up.

To empty the cache, do the following:

1. Go to PHPMyAdmin and open your database
2. Click on structure
3. Look for the row cache
4. Look at the MB value for the row. If it is a big value, that's the problem.
5. Click on Empty