What happens when source computer's hardware fails

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1

Like many others here, I’m looking for an alternative to CrashPlan and Duplicati caught my eye. Some initial tests in a few VM’s look promising to me.

I am curious about 1 thing though. What happens if one of my backed up machines (say, a laptop) fails completely and I want to restore it’s files to a newly bought machine?
The problem I see with this is, I now don’t have the key to decrypt the files from the destination anymore, is that right?
Is there any way around this, or some way to store the key and use it on a new computer?

Also, I think the some issue (among others) comes into play when I want to restore a file to another machine; is this in any way possible?

Thanks in advance!

2

Yes, that’s possible, as long as you have the encryption key you used for the backup. So, document the key and store it somewhere outside your source computer!

You can do a restore on another machine by importing a config file you exported earlier from the original host, or by supplying the information manually.

You can see how it works in this tutorial video:

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3

I am storing my encryption key in LastPass.

BTW, OP, you had this same issue with CrashPlan if you used the stronger keys…