How can I destroy my Droplets while maintaining my backups?

Our automated backup service is an add-on product to our Droplets. When a Droplet is destroyed, the automated backups are destroyed along with it.

If you wish to retain your backups, we recommend converting them into Snapshots before deleting your Droplet. You can also take a Snapshot immediately prior to destroying your Droplet for a more up-to-date Snapshot.

You can recover your Droplet if you have taken a snapshot of the Droplet or signed up for automated backups.
You cannot currently download DigitalOcean backups or snapshots, but you can use third-party tools to save your data locally.
You can manually back up a Droplet using DigitalOcean snapshots or backups or, alternatively, using a third-party tool like rsync or SFTP.