Relink/claim external drive (or any) backup from a different (new) computer

Hey team,

I recently bought space to use the new Backups feature with an external drive. After the initial 2.5TB upload (which took about 9 days), the backup worked great until I upgraded to a newer computer.

External drive backups are locked to the computer they were created on, so I can’t claim or relink them with a different computer, even if the external drive is the same. Your agents recommend deleting the old backup and creating a new one, which is a hassle since I’m uploading a lot of data and it takes a long time. I’m also without backup for the next week while I re-upload it.

I pay extra for unlimited internet data, but that could be a problem for some people. I’d love to upgrade to fiber-based internet, but it’s not available in my neighborhood. I’m stuck with cable with a capped 50Mb/s upload speed and 1Gb/s download so for the time being, this will continue to be a problem with the backup service.

The ability to relink or “claim” a backup for the same external (or any) device would be a great feature for your product roadmap. It’s not a daily feature, but when it comes up, it’s risky, costly, and time-consuming to manage without it. Features like this often get delayed because they’re considered edge cases, but they become major long-term pain points for users.