Are backups kept on the same server as my sites

No. A backup stored on the same disk as the thing it is backing up is not a backup, it is a second copy waiting for the same accident. Backups are written to separate storage so that losing the server does not lose the recovery.

Why this is the question to ask any host

The word "backup" covers arrangements that differ enormously in what they survive:

• Same disk. Protects against you deleting a file. Protects against nothing else.
• Same machine, different disk. Survives a disk failure. Does not survive the machine.
• Separate storage. Survives the machine.
• Different facility. Survives the site.

Most incidents that actually destroy data are in the first two rows, which is why the answer matters more than the frequency people usually ask about.

What that means for restores

Because the copies are not on your account, they do not consume your disk allocation and cannot be deleted by anything running on your site. A compromise that wipes files cannot reach into the backup storage and wipe those too.

It also means a restore is a request rather than a file you copy back yourself, for anything beyond what the panel exposes directly.

What still sits inside your account

Any backup you generate yourself and leave in the account is on the same disk as the site, and it counts against your space. It is useful for a quick rollback before a risky change and useless for everything else.

If you make one, download it. A full account backup sitting in the home directory is the most common reason an account runs out of disk, and it protects against almost nothing while it sits there. Disk consumption on an estate is covered in disk and inode usage.

Off platform copies

Everything above is still one provider's arrangement. For anything you could not rebuild, keep a copy somewhere unrelated to us: your own storage, an object store, a machine in your office. Not because failure here is expected, but because a copy that depends on one company is exposed to more than that company's hardware.

That is a small monthly habit rather than a project, and it is described in taking your own backup whenever you want.

The test that settles it

Ask yourself what you would still have if this entire account disappeared tonight. If the answer is nothing, no backup arrangement described here is doing the job you assumed it was, and the fix is a copy you control.