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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 external hard drive to Dropbox. I couldn't do it simply because Dropbox doesn't detect the drive. I tried to connect my external drive to USB-C port at the back of my Mac, or via USB-A port using an external USB hub - no result. However when, for experiment sake, I connected my old portable WD Studio drive, Dropbox detected it straight away. All my portable drives are formatted to Mac Os Extended (Journaled) and I wouldn't want to change that.
Can anyone help resolving this issue? Thanks in advance.
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!
- Jay
Dropbox Staff
Hi Vlad Verbni, thanks for messaging the Community.
Just for clarification, is the drive file system in the list of supported files on this section?
This will help me to assist further!
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
Have you tried manually adding the drive to the backups list from the Dropbox site directly by clicking Manage Backups?
