Hosts back up, but you should never rely on that alone. Disk corruption, an accidental rm -rf from a freelancer, or a mistimed migration can take a site offline for hours if you have no off-server copy. cPanel gives you three tools — use all three.
1. JetBackup (daily, automatic). If your plan includes JetBackup you will see it under the Files section. Open it, confirm the daily and weekly retention, and bookmark the page. Restoring a single file or the whole account from here takes a few clicks.
2. Backup Wizard (full account, manual). Under Files → Backup Wizard, choose Back Up → Full Backup. This produces a single tarball of files, databases, email, and DNS. Email yourself when it is ready and download it to your computer. Keep a copy on Google Drive or an external drive — never only on the same server.
3. Partial backups before any risky change. Before updating a major plugin or editing wp-config.php, go to Backup Wizard → Back Up → Home Directory and download just the file backup. It is fast and saves you on the one in twenty deploys that goes wrong.
Restore drill — do it once. A backup is not a backup until you have restored from it at least once. On a staging subdomain, restore a partial backup and confirm the site loads. This is the single most useful 30 minutes you will spend.
Database-only export. For WordPress, you can also dump just the database from Databases → phpMyAdmin → Export → Quick → SQL. Combine that with a wp-content zip and you have a complete site backup with no extra software.
Rule of three. Three copies, on two media, with one off-site. Sounds excessive — until the day you need it.