<b>Database-only backups are how affiliates lose six months of work overnight.</b>

<b>Database-only backups are how affiliates lose six months of work overnight.</b>
Your <code>mysqldump</code> is gorgeous. Now restore it onto a box with no uploads folder, no theme files, no .htaccess, no config — and watch your site stay broken.
The inverse is worse: full-file backups with a stale or missing DB give you a beautiful skeleton that knows nothing.
A real backup is DB + files + config, captured at the same moment, restorable together in one pass.
If your two halves were taken hours apart, your restore is already inconsistent. Fight me in the comments.