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Forum Discussion
Restore external drive from Dropbox Backup -- how?
This question specifically concerns the new Dropbox "Backup" functionality, and *not* the well-established normal cloud/sync functions of Dropbox (which have always work pretty well for me). So now I backed up an external hard disk (some 500+ gb of data) to Dropbox Backup -- this worked fine (almost, I needed two attempts but) now I have a backup of that disk on Dropbox Backup. This is nice, but here's my questions:
- Showing the folder sizes on the web interface, they are all smaller than those actually on the hard disk (as shown by Finder locally). To double check, I downloaded one of the folders back to my computer again, and there the file sizes match those of the external HDD again. Long story, are the file/folder sizes on the web interface simply off (too small?)?
- All progress information provided by the app while backing up, i.e., what it is doing when, how many files of which sizes are left etc. are *completely* off. Ridiculously off. Like "I am at 99%" (or even finished) when just 2/10000 files had been transferred.
- Now my most important question. A "backup" (e.g. of an external HDD) is for restoring the disk in case the HDD brakes or is lost, correct? But how the heck can I restore my drive (say, on a new HDD) from Dropbox Backup? I checked and searched but all I can find is the option to download (as zipped folders) from the "Backup" web interface. There doesn't seem to be any option like "restore my disk from backup X". The "download" seems equivalent, but there is a critical limit: you can download only like 25k files at once. So if you chose to backup a disk with a huge picture collection (say 1TB with about 350k files) you'd have a hard time restoring that disk from Dropbox Backup, is this correct? (You'd need to manually start a dozen of zip-folder downloads). Isn't there any simple unsupervised procedure for restoring an external drive no matter what's on it? Any information appreciated!
BdiS wrote:
Showing the folder sizes on the web interface, they are all smaller than those actually on the hard disk (as shown by Finder locally).
Could that be due to the fact that Mac uses 1000 bytes to represent a Kilobyte instead of the more standard 1024 bytes, which Dropbox also uses?
But how the heck can I restore my drive (say, on a new HDD) from Dropbox Backup? ... The "download" seems equivalent ...For external drives, the download function is pretty much it.
- Rich
Super User II
BdiS wrote:
Showing the folder sizes on the web interface, they are all smaller than those actually on the hard disk (as shown by Finder locally).
Could that be due to the fact that Mac uses 1000 bytes to represent a Kilobyte instead of the more standard 1024 bytes, which Dropbox also uses?
But how the heck can I restore my drive (say, on a new HDD) from Dropbox Backup? ... The "download" seems equivalent ...For external drives, the download function is pretty much it.
