DayZ Backups, Restores and Where Your Save Lives
How GameGrid backs up a DayZ server, what a backup contains, how to take a clean backup and restore one, and how to bring a DayZ world over from another host.
What a DayZ Backup Contains
A GameGrid backup of a DayZ server includes the mpmissions/ folder, which holds:
| Inside mpmissions/ | Why it matters |
|---|---|
<map>/storage_1/ | That map's save data: characters, bases, vehicles |
<map>/db/ and <map>/cfggameplay.json | Your loot and gameplay edits |
Alongside mpmissions/ a backup also carries serverDZ.cfg, your ban.txt, whitelist.txt and priority.txt player lists, and the profiles/ folder. Crash logs and dumps inside profiles/ (.RPT, .mdmp, .log) are left out — they are tens of megabytes a day and nothing restores from them.
The DayZ game files themselves are not part of your backup: they are reinstalled from Steam.
Automatic and Manual Backups
Every server is backed up once a day automatically. By default the last 7 backups or the last 7 days are kept, whichever limit is reached first.
For anything you care about, take a manual backup as well: before editing mission files, switching maps or wiping. On the Backups tab, add a label such as "before loot changes" and press Create Backup Now. Manual backups are never deleted automatically.
Full detail on retention, quota and downloading: How Backups Work.
Taking a Clean Backup
DayZ writes its save data periodically and when it shuts down. A backup of a running server is the world as of DayZ's last save, which can be a few minutes behind what players see.
For a backup you are certain of, for example before a wipe or a big mod change:
1. Warn players and Stop the server from the status bar.
2. Wait for the status to show stopped, so DayZ has saved.
3. Take the manual backup.
4. Start the server again.
Restoring a Backup
1. On the Backups tab, find the backup and press Restore.
2. Confirm. If players are online you are told how many first.
3. The platform takes a safety copy of the current files, then puts the backup in place and checks the server.
A restore brings back everything in the backup, not only the world: mission file edits, and anything else the backup holds, return to how they were at that moment. If you changed types.xml since the backup and want to keep that change, download the file before restoring and upload it again afterwards.
After a restore, start the server, join, and check that characters and bases are as you expect.
If a restore goes wrong, the safety copy is in your backup list and can be restored in turn.
Removing a Mod Can Take Your World With It
This is the one that catches people out, because nothing about it looks dangerous and nothing reports it afterwards.
DayZ saves every stored item, vehicle part, container and map object together with the scripted variables that the mods loaded at the time wrote into it. Those variables go into the save whether or not the mod "owns" the object. When the server next starts without that mod, DayZ cannot read them back.
What you actually see
Nothing. The Mods tab says the mod was removed, the server starts, the status goes green, and no error appears anywhere in the panel. The damage is only in the saved world, and only DayZ's own crash log records it, as thousands of lines reading Scripted variables corrupted upon "<item>". Entity will not be loaded correctly.
On a GameGrid test server, removing a single framework mod left 21,473 saved objects across 1,157 different types unreadable on the very next start. Almost none of them were the mod's own content — they were ordinary DayZ items: clothing, weapons, ammunition, car doors, wheels and batteries, barrels, tents, sea chests and map wrecks.
DayZ's log does not say whether an affected object comes back empty or does not come back at all, so treat both as possible.
What is and is not risky
| Change | Effect on a saved world |
|---|---|
| Adding a mod | Safe. A loaded mod can still read back everything it wrote, so nothing already in your save becomes unreadable. |
| Removing a mod | Risky. This is what produced the 21,473 objects above. |
| Disabling a mod | Same risk as removing: a disabled mod is left off the launch line, which is the same condition. |
| Updating a mod | Normally fine — the mod is still loaded, so its variables can still be read. |
The one piece of good news
Removing or disabling a mod does not change your world by itself. The loss happens at the next server start. Until you start the server again, your saved world is still intact and a backup taken now still captures it.
What to do
1. Stop the server. DayZ has no command that forces a save, so a backup of a running server only holds what its last automatic save wrote.
2. Take a manual backup on the Backups tab and wait for it to reach Verified. A DayZ backup includes mpmissions/, and your saved world is inside it.
3. Remove the mod, then start the server.
4. Join and check your own base, a vehicle and a stored container before you tell players it is done.
5. If the world is not what you expect, Restore that backup before players build on top of the damage.
GameGrid does not take a backup automatically when you remove a mod. If you skip step 2 there is nothing to go back to.
If you are removing a mod only because you no longer use it, consider leaving it installed and loaded instead: that keeps the saved world readable and costs nothing but disk space. And if you do not want the current world at all, none of this applies — a fresh world cannot be affected. See Wiping Your DayZ Server.
DayZ's Own storage Backups
Inside each storage_1 folder DayZ keeps a backup folder of rolling copies of its save files. They help DayZ recover from a damaged save, but they sit next to the files they protect, are overwritten as the server runs, and are lost in the same wipe or disk problem.
Treat them as a last resort, not your backup plan. GameGrid backups are stored away from the server.
Bringing a World from Another Host
You can try moving a DayZ world from another host or your own PC, as long as it is the same map and a compatible DayZ version. A world from a modded server also needs the same mods, installed from the Mods tab in the same load order; without them its modded items and buildings are not loaded.
1. On the old host, stop the server and download its mission folder, including the save folder (storage_<number>).
2. On GameGrid, set the same map.
3. Stop your GameGrid server and take a backup.
4. Upload the mission folder into mpmissions/ over SFTP (mission folders are large, so SFTP is easier than the panel upload). The details are on the Overview tab's File Access card.
5. Rename the save folder to `storage_1`. GameGrid servers always use instance ID 1, so a world saved as storage_2 or storage_3 elsewhere is not found until it is renamed.
6. Start the server and check that characters and bases are there.
If the world comes up empty, check the folder name and that the map setting matches the mission you uploaded, then restore your backup and open a support ticket.