You can take snapshots instead of using the backup feature. Then you have full control of when you want the "backup".
You're able to generate your own backups using either Snapshots, or running you own server-side.
Snapshots generate full-state backups, meaning they take a snapshot of the entire server, thus they are meant to restore the entire server, including the OS, software, services and data. They function as an image and you can't restore anything specific -- it's all or nothing.
If you specifically need data backups -- content, uploads, databases, etc -- and you don't need a full image backup of the entire server, you'd need to generate the backups on your own as DigitalOcean doesn't provide the means for hourly/daily/weekly/monthly backups in this fashion just yet.
