Shutting down site for maintenance - Must I?

I'm preparing to make a local copy of my site -- database & files. I read that I should close my site for maintenance while doing this, which I'm loathe to do, of course. I noticed that the backup sql add on that I had installed for me doesn't mention this requirement, so I'm wondering if it's really necessary. I'd like to run a database backup daily, but if i have to shut down for maintenance every day, that's very costly.

Is it possible to copy down the site files while customers are on the site?

Is it possible to run backups while customers are on the site?

What happens if I don't?

Thanks!

And one other question - when I have my test site set up, is there an easy way to mass delete customer and order data.

One at a time would be horribly painful...:yuck:

you don't need to shut down your site , to do database backup .. but do it when there are not many people online .
i think database backup has a feature to lock the database from modification ..

you can back up your entire site , that wont effect your users , but might effect the bandwidth which might make your site slow until you finished downloading .

shutting site down is good idea , when you need to add modules to your site that might have to overwrite some core file , or they have to add few entries into database , this way , you are sure , customer are not effected.

always do backup at times that you know , there are not many people online ..

those are just my 2 cents.

Hmmm. So it sounds like the primary issue is that it would (potentially) slow down the customer experience.

Of course, that's preferable to kicking them out of the store...

anyone have any idea on how to delete multiple customers & orders at a time?

there is a free addon called super orders .. i don't know how it works , but you may look into it.

http://www.zen-cart.com/index.php?main_page=product_contrib_info&products_id=257

there is a support thread that you can check out and see if that would work for you .

I'll check it out!