Before anything on your site is modified, every restore runs its own safety checks at restore time:
- The backup artifacts must be present (missing cloud copies are downloaded first)
- Each required artifact is checked against its stored SHA-256 checksum
- A safety checkpoint (a fresh backup of the current state) is created so a failed restore can roll back
- Disk space, database connectivity, and write permissions are validated
If a pre-restore check fails, the restore stops before any destructive step and the site is left unchanged.
Central's restore-readiness view is metadata-based: it reads backup records and checksum metadata to give an early signal. It does not perform a restore and is not a guaranteed restore test — the checks above are what actually protect a restore.