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Forum Discussion
iMac 2021 - Dropbox doesn't detect an external Samsung SSD drive
Hi all, I have the latest silicon iMac however keep all my files on a recently purchased external Samsung 1T SSD drive due to lack of hard drive space on my new Mac (256GB). So I wanted to sync my e...
The problem is solved. Essentially what has happened is that at the time when the dropbox app was installed, the external Samsung SSD drive was connected to iMac. So Dropbox the time of installation treated the external drive as a part of iMac hard drive. I removed the Dropbox on my iMac, disconnected the Samsung drive, and reinstalled the latest Dropbox app. The Dropbox instantly started backing up the data sitting on the external drive. Like I said: the problem is solved!
Hi Jay,
All my external hard drives that I use with my iMac: Western Digital 1TB (used for Time Machine Back-up) and Samsung 1TB SSD (used for all my documents) are formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) – the most suitable format for Mac. It's not on supported list of disk formats. However, my WD 1TB external drive is detected by Dropbox. I tested a few of my older WD drives, and yes, all of them show up in Dropbox. This tells me that in fact, Dropbox does support Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format even though it is not listed. My problem is: Dropbox doesn't detect the newest Samsung 1TB SSD that I keep all my document on, the one I would like to sync. From other discussion threads I understood that Dropbox can sync external Solid State Drives, then why it doesn't sync mine?
Also I hate an idea of using traditional WD drive, or reformatting my Samsung drive to, say, FAT32. This is because all previous generation DISK drives are not as reliable, and also are not as fast to work from as SSD ones.
Do you know if Dropbox was ever tested to sync with external solid state drives? Maybe that’s where the problem is.
Jay
Dropbox Staff
Dropbox StaffHave you tried manually adding the drive to the backups list from the Dropbox site directly by clicking Manage Backups?
Yes Jay. Of course I tried that. Since Dropbox doesn't detect the Samsung SSD drive (connected to my iMac via built-in USB-C port), the only folders I can see after clicking on "manage backups" button is the ones sitting on my iMac hard drive. The option to choose the backup is only given when Dropbox is reading an external drive. In my case, it doesn't detect it.
- Jay
Thanks for the info, in order to look into this matter in more detail, would it be possible to reach out to the email associated with your forum profile?
Hi Jay. Brett form Dropbox support has closed my ticket replying: “As you mentioned before, your external hard drive's format is "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". As mentioned before, the only formats that are detectable by the Dropbox Desktop application regarding Mac OS, are the HFS+, APFS, exFAT, FAT32.”
As you probably understand, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and HFS+ (supported by Dropbox) is very same format type. This means that Dropbox doesn't detect my external drive when it should. So my ticket was closed without any further investigation. Very disappointing.
