You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
No additional space on Business Advanced
Dear community,
I'm here to advice that the support have been denying us additional space for two weeks, first telling us that there was a momentary problem, then that we had made a request before...
Dear Dropbox staff: Read and treat this seriously! Please pass this along to the appropriate department for handling. Thank you.
TLDR: Due to Google Workspace enforcing storage limits; users are migrating hundreds of TB of encrypted data (movies, TV) for use on their Plex servers (they mount and stream data from Dropbox with a tool called Rclone, so they don't have to pay the high cost of storing locally. Link to the tool: https://rclone.org/) . They then sell access to these Plex servers for a monthly paid subscription. This is considered a breach of Dropbox's AUP and these accounts should be banned.
Summary: Google Workspace was not enforcing storage limits and was being abused by people uploading hundreds of TB (even PB) of encrypted data (so they can't even de-duplicate the data) to Google Drive.
Google at the start of March 2023 decided to put a halt to this and is now enforcing storage limits. Users are now looking for a new unlimited cloud storage options. Enter Dropbox. You can see people discussing and pooling together for Dropbox Advanced this on this forum: https://forum.rclone.org/t/dropbox-unlimited-plan-looking-for-other-persons and here: https://forum.rclone.org/t/unlimited-alternatives-to-google-drive-what-are-the-options
This is where the huge influx of data is coming from per your notice:
We are currently seeing unexpected growth across Dropbox Advanced, and as a result are currently only able to grant 1 TB per month per team.
If your team needs more than 1 TB per month, you can purchase a space pack from https://www.dropbox.com/plans
We understand this may be frustrating and are working to resolve this for our customers.
This is a temporary measure we have put in place due to unexpected growth across Dropbox Advanced. We do not yet have an estimate as to when we will be able to grant larger quota increases.
How to solve this: Easily. You are looking for Dropbox Advanced accounts created in March 2023 or after and have 3 users only (usually) and tons of data taken up by encrypted files (basically gibberish). Some accounts may have been created early than March 2023, but still fit the criteria of using TONS of data.
Please investigate this and close the accounts abusing the service Dropbox provides. Thank you.
Sorry to say your fix doesnt actually solve it, There are many companys out there that use linux servers so use apps like rclone to connect to cloud back up servers, considering last I check dropbox dont have a linux alternative, also like my company who uses server that are linux based, Projects injest through it and back up to the cloud.
Your "easy fix" as you call it doesnt take everything into consideration and mass banning everyone on a claim without actual proof, would see dropbox sued into the next century.
Its not as easy as you think it is to stop the abuse by hoarders that have moved over to DB.
Also for someone who claims not to be doing things, you certainly know alot about it, where to look and such, I didnt even know half of that.
Yes Dropbox needs to do something but what I actually dont know. Investigate Account Sharing/Selling defaintly, but finding those that are selling Plex Accounts, going to be hard as by what I have heard Plex themselves have spent years trying to find a way.
- Please read the AUP: https://www.dropbox.com/acceptable_useuse the Services to back up, or as infrastructure for, your own cloud services;P.S. No reputable company is using Dropbox to backup data. It is against their AUP. They would use real backup services for that. Blackblaze B2, etc. You are most likely the cause of this problem too.
