cPanel Backup causing High Server load/CPU Usage

cPanel backup might cause high cpu usage and slowness on some of the servers. I have tried to reduce the priority of cPanel backup process using renice command but that didn’t work.

Do the below steps to reduce the server load caused due to cPanel backups.

1 . Set the cPanel backup to ‘incremental’ type in cPanel Backup Settings

Compressed backup will consume high server resources compared to other backup options. Uncompressed will use less server resources but it will use more disk space compared to compressed backup.

Incremental backup will save only changed information so backup won’t take much long.
Drawback : Incremental backup type allows only one backup.
 

 
2. Schedule the cPanel cronjob during off peak hours and this wont stress your CPU.

You can edit the cPanel cronjob from the server backend. Log into your cPanel server via SSH as root user and then type the command “crontab -l” to list all cPanel cronjobs.
 

 

On the above server Backup is scheduled to run at server time 2AM and legacy backup is set at 1 AM. You can change the time of cPanel backup and set it during off peak hours. Running cPanel backup cron when there is high traffic might cause high server load.

Do not turn on both legacy backup and new cPanel backup feature because enabling both backup will cause high server load. Log in to WHM and disable the ‘Legacy backup’ and keep only the new backup feature enabled.

3. If backup is still affecting the server load even after doing the doing the above steps then upgrade disk/CPU by contacting your hosting company/datacenter.