FTP and bandwidth

[jwjpkkj]

Sorry if in wrong section.

I have installed a CMS (Content Management System) and am just about ready to go live with it (which is another story and question altogether as apparently I need to configure it etc). But before I do, I know I need to download all the files to my harddrive. So Ive been trying to d/l almost all day via my FTP (of course) and it always ends up with "transfer failed" and "A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond.
Timeout (40s).". It does this at random points of the transfer. Sometimes it gets donwloaded further along than others.

So firstly, Im wondering, does this affect my bandwith, ie the number of times I download or upload somehting, and the bytes etc via FTP?

2. How can I get it to download all in one go? Becuase there are so many folders and subs that it gets a bit confusing if I try to finish off the transfer one folder at a time.

3. What can I do to stop it stopping midway?

[Joe]

FTP connections have a timeout setting for a certain amount of time of inactivity. Trying to downloading the entire thing at once would cause this.

Yes, it does affect your bandwidth, anything that goes to or from your server is bandwidth.

If you are using a CMS then anything you do add won't be stored on hardcopy pages but will instead be inside a database, instead of trying to backup the entire folder of files, just create a backup of your DB, it'll be much quicker and it will actually have all your content in there.

[jwjpkkj]

Excellent. Thanks for that. And, thanks for answering in simple language. For once I understand everyword. :P

[Joe]

No probs :)