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Forum Discussion
Dual booting with shared DB drive possible?
I am looking in to buying a new laptop and will need to dual boot Windows and Ubuntu. I am planning three SSD's - one for Windows, one for Ubuntu and one as a shared data drive. Is it possible to...
It's very possible, just not supported or recommended.
Install Dropbox and use the Advanced Options to specify the location for your Dropbox folder. Allow it to sync completely. Boot into the other operating system and install Dropbox, again using Advanced Options to specify the same Dropbox folder. Dropbox will index your files when the installation is complete, but shouldn't need to sync anything unless there have been changes (though it may appear to be syncing, just let it work).
It is extremely important that you DO NOT USE SELECTIVE SYNC from either operating system when running in this configuration. If you do, you WILL lose files.
I would also suggest never booting into the other operating system until you're certain that the current one is fully synced. Also, as always, keep your own backups of your data.
I am not really wanting to run DB on a server. I want to dual boot a single machine which will have both Windows and Ubuntu on it. It will have Windows installed on one drive, Ubuntu on another and a third drive will be a data drive that can be seen by both operating systems that I plan to put my DB folder. All drives will be installed on one computer and the only user account accessing that drive will be me.
Rich
Super User II
Super User IIIt's very possible, just not supported or recommended.
Install Dropbox and use the Advanced Options to specify the location for your Dropbox folder. Allow it to sync completely. Boot into the other operating system and install Dropbox, again using Advanced Options to specify the same Dropbox folder. Dropbox will index your files when the installation is complete, but shouldn't need to sync anything unless there have been changes (though it may appear to be syncing, just let it work).
It is extremely important that you DO NOT USE SELECTIVE SYNC from either operating system when running in this configuration. If you do, you WILL lose files.
I would also suggest never booting into the other operating system until you're certain that the current one is fully synced. Also, as always, keep your own backups of your data.
I attempted this today, I think this thread is outdated. It looks like the dropbox desktop client for Linux no longer supports ntfs formatted volumes (requires ext4 formatted partition). Thus, it seems now impossible to boot between linux and windows and share dropbox files between them (Windows can not read ext4 formatted partition) - you must have two different dropbox installations - this is from the system requirements page on dropbox:
Linux: Ubuntu 14.04 or higher, Fedora 21 or higher
- The Dropbox folder will need to be on an ext4-formatted hard drive or partition
- Note: ecryptfs is not supported, but Dropbox will continue to sync with supported file systems that are encrypted via full disk encryption (e.g. LUKS)
So I have a question though. Does anyone know, if I'm booted in Linux, I can see and mount the ntfs drive - so I can open and modify files in the ntfs mounted drive within the dropbox folders for the Windows install. If I modify those files, next time I boot into Windows and the dropbox client runs - will it see the files have changed and synch them?
I'm terribly disappointed that dropbox doesn't support a dual boot scenario and will be investigating alternative storage services now.
I had it working seamlesly, however, DB no longer supports NTFS under Linux and so this no longer works.
I'm in the same boat as chasDSO. I had been using only one NTFS data drive in my dualboot (win10, ubuntu 18.04 --originally 16.04) for a while now. I'm a PhD student and I run simulations in linux-based clusters, so it's easier to use ubuntu's command line tools, but there's a few things that are better done in windows. DB was one of my backup solutions, and my way of syncing my work (ubuntu), home (dual-boot) and laptop (ubuntu) computers.
I've tried ext2fsd on windows, and while I can read my drive, windows refuses to give me write permissions on an "insecure file system".Short of duplicating my 1TB DB folder, I see no good solution to this.
I feel the same pain. I have 170 Gb in my Dropbox, therefore I am a paying user.
Counting the Dropbox folder plus the .cache folder plus the DBs ..., goes beyond 200 Gb at my hard disk ...
It looks awkward and wasteful to have 200Gb in a windows partition and again another 200Gb in the Linux partition.
It is rather unaffordable, if you mostly work with laptops, and you expect to have fast SSD drives, as basically a 512 GB SSD which is not cheap will not be enough and then I will need a 1TB SSD drive which is quite expensive.
This thread started with someone trying to eliminate the duplication of the DB, and has evolved into confirming duplication of both, DB and files.
For me, this blow up the competitive advantage that Dropbox has over Google Drive and OneDrive, as until now they were performing quite poorly on Linux (to be gentle, because they do not have Linux client), ... so now this places Dropbox to some short of similar side, where it is only able to work in one of the two OS of my Dual boot laptops.
I can understand the complexity of this, and accept that the indexing is done every-time we switch of OS, and that in the worst case scenario the DB is duplicated ... but having several hundreds of GBs duplicated is not an option for me and most of the dual boot Dropbox clients ...
- This doesn't solve the problem. Once dropbox is installed on one of the OS's, and the Dropbox folder is moved to the shared partition, the Dropbox application on the other OS won't allow you to use that same folder as your Dropbox directory: it issues a "This folder already contains a Dropbox directory" error and can't change the default location." This happens regardless of whether you install Dropbox on one OS first, or on the other.
It would be extremely useful, both for space-saving, and convenience. Is there a way around this?- Rich
travsformation wrote:
... the Dropbox application on the other OS won't allow you to use that same folder as your Dropbox directory: it issues a "This folder already contains a Dropbox directory" error and can't change the default location."When that happens, rename the Dropbox folder to Dropbox2 or similar. Reinstall Dropbox and select the location that you want for the Dropbox folder, just like you did on the first OS, and let the installation create a new Dropbox folder. When the installation is finished, Dropbox will immediately start to sync. Exit the Dropbox application to stop syncing. Rename the new Dropbox folder to Dropbox_OLD and rename Dropbox2 to Dropbox. Re-launch Dropbox.
At this point Dropbox will begin indexing all of your files. This process will take a while, especially if you have a lot of data to go through. During this time it may say that files are uploading or downloading, but it's only transferring comparison data and any changes that it find. Be patient and LET IT WORK.And because it's worth repeating...
It is extremely important that you DO NOT USE SELECTIVE SYNC from either operating system when running in this configuration. If you do, you WILL lose files.
- I can't believe I didn't think of that! Great workaround, thanks! :)
