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Forum Discussion
Dropbox removing external disk support for Mac users
In case anyone's unaware... if you're a Mac user storing your Dropbox on an external drive, you'll shortly lose that ability.
https://talk.tidbits.com/t/dropbox-drops-support-for-storing-files-...
ArthurPix @fjazzfjazz @shinbeth I don't think I'll go back sadly. I will keep my personal account with them just for sheer convenience and because it's nowhere near as big as my business one but their whole attitude on this has left a nasty taste in my mouth.
If sync.com is just as good and I don't have the constant sucking up of CPU and RAM too from their app then to me it's good to go. My main requests are team sharing facility, being able to use an external drive and the ability to share externally. It seems sync.com has all this for $15 per user per month. Dropbox has increased to $24 per user per month now. So with 9 people I'll be saving just under $1K USD per year.
I am all paid up until September so I shall be keeping it until then but just not renewing.
Is it possible to point Sync.com at the current external Dropbox folder, so it exists in both until dropbox is switched off, or is that just asking for trouble? I don't want to have to duplicate the (just under) 3Tb I data I have stored in my 'master' dropbox folder, ifI don't have to, as I switch to Sync.com.
Ru 1971 OH NO, YOU DO NOT want to have two services pointed at the same folder. Unless they have safeguards built in, this would be like the hall of mirrors with both services back at each other and eventually choke, possibly mangling your data—or, if you’re a guitarist, think about ear-shredding feedback.
What you CAN do is copy your Dropbox folder onto Sync, which is what I did, so that I’d have a backup in case of unforeseen disaster. Happily, I didn’t need it, and now can safely delete my Dropbox contents. I’ll have to check when my subscription comes up for renewal, so I can downgrade it.
- Totally concur with that. You are setting yourself up for total data loss, so avoid at all costs.
I am a small user in comparison to most of you on this thread (only 1.4 TB), but I moved to Sync.com and I haven't looked back. It may not be quite as full featured as dropbox, but it was easy to set up and has worked flawlessly from the beginning. I'm glad, for the sake of the really large users, that dropbox is going to try to fix this, but I don't intend to move back no matter what dropbox does. I have a couple of reasons for this. First, the way dropbox handled this whole affair just reeks, and they've lost my trust. Second of all, from what I've read, the workarounds that others have implemented (OneDrive, for example) seem to be more than a little bit of a kludge, and I don't need that.
- camner when did you leave? Only asking out of curiosity. And I think you’ll find there’s quite a few of us who agree with you about this whole debacle.
And I agree that sync is less featured but I kinda feel that’s the point. Simple, streamlined and does exactly what it says on the tin. No frills, no fuss and no ‘features’ that users use, not that I know of anyway.
That’s a thought. How many people use Paper, Sign or Capture or any of the other ‘features’?
I only use Send. I find that excellent in fact. I think they did a good job on that but I don’t use the rest. In fact I only just installed capture for a call I have to record next week, and if it wasn’t for that I would never have used it. UKD Ru 1971 shinbeth camner So… today I canceled my Dropbox auto renewal.
I’m already paid up through mid-November 2023, so this doesn’t mean I’m dropping 😎 off the map — at least not for the next six months — but I’ve moved all supported folders to my new service, and am now no longer fearful of having my online storage pulled off my external drive.
I MIGHT come back if Dropbox commits to external drive support. But honestly, I can’t see much advantage to doing so. Here are my priorities:
SPEED. My new service is approximately as fast as Dropbox or, anyhow, as fast as I need.
SECURITY. My new service has REAL end-to-end, TNO (trust no one) encryption, meaning their engineers couldn’t hand anyone else the keys even if they wanted to.
2-FACTOR. It supports 2-factor authentication via Google, MS or Authy.
SHARING. It offers free accounts up to 5 GB, which is big enough for pretty much anyone outside the service with whom I want to share data.
S-P-A-C-E. For the same price I’m paying Dropbox for 3 Terabytes of storage, I now get 6 Tb.
Again, I haven’t totally pulled the plug on Dropbox. I’m still paid up for the next six months, and will periodically bring my Dropbox up to date just so that I have a safety net. However, I doubt I’ll need it.I’ve already switched over my iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro, and will switch my desktop Mac Studio in another week.
Water’s fine!
And, of course, I’m staying here in the Dropbox community to help out anyone who asks!
I am testing out Sync now as well and it seems to work great, except for the speed. Uploading and downloading is capped at 40Mbps, which is especially slow for downloading. It still seems to be the best alternative, but I hope they will increase the speed cap in the future, since it's very slow for everyday use with large files.
I'm also testing out Sync right now on one of my machines and plan to move my entire system over in the next few days.
Never thought I'd be saying goodbye to Dropbox, especially after nearly 14 years of trusted service both for business and personal use. But this disaster has opened my eyes to the competition.
I want end to end encryption without my files being analyzed by third parties. I want simplicity without the clutter of features I don't use. And most of all, I need to be able to store my own files locally wherever I deem necessary.
The assistance from everyone here in this community has been enormously helpful. Thank you. Seriously. 👍Vive la revolution!!
jmeredi2 zI certainly understand your concern about the speed. I fear that true end to end encryption may exact a price in file mirroring. For me it’s more than worth it, because my main use case is sharing data among my own 5 different, equally used, devices, which doesn’t require lightning speed. Every few days, I may also need to share data with coworkers, which also can take place at a more leisurely pace. But my main concern is that I want everyone in my business to be able to share data while backing it up offline, WITHOUT paying thousands of dollars for offline storage. And this can only happen when my storage service allows for offline storage on external devices. Unfortunately, Apple sells internal storage at $400/terabyte, while Samsung (for example) will sell you an SSD for about $130/2 Terabytes plus the nominal cost of an enclosure. When I buy my partner an M2 Mac Mini Pro with 512GB internal SSD, I want her to be able to add 6T of storage for $400 instead of $2400!
camner UKD Jon C.10 Bookpast You’re right to be shunning OneDrive, as I have discovered that this once-trusted service has CORRUPTED EVERY SINGLE PDF FILE to which I entrusted it! Think of this! Whenever I received an email that I wished to preserve, I converted it to a PDF. And now, every single PDF that I created for years is unreadable! If I could sue Microsoft, I would, but of course I am prevented by their TOS! This is why I Transferred all of my OneDrive files to dropbox, but now I find that I must in turn transfer my dropbox files. It’s a sad, hard lesson. I’m going to save all my DropBox files to my NAS, in addition to copying them to my new service. TRUST NO ONE!
apfundDropbox Product Manager
Hi Arthur, While I cannot comment on many of the points you mentioned, there is one thing that I can add: My team is currently working on zero knowledge, end-to-end encryption, natively integrated with Dropbox for business customers. While I can't confirm a specific timeline or roadmap or pricing at the moment, I want to assure you that we are aware of your need for this native integration. Also, we (and especially I personally) read your comments/wishes/ideas and all feedback shared in this forum related to end-to-end encryption. I'm also sharing everything I see and read here internally and will make sure that your voice is heard.apfund what started all of this is that Dropbox might not support external drives anymore.
How can Sync.com support it?
All of this turmoil would be over if Dropbox can at least confirm that somehow, it will always continue to support external drives.
Do you have any word on this matter?
At last, a response from the dropbox team, but sadly none of it was about external drive support. Can you please tell what you guys are currently working about this ordeal.
pampy I know right. They are gracing us with their presence. Shame they haven't been doing that the last 18 months.
I thought the comment from apfund is hilarious; "I'm also sharing everything I see and read here internally and will make sure that your voice is heard." We've all been screaming at the top of our voices to get someone to listen to us and nobody has. So apfund you are about to lose a load of customers, you know, those people that help pay your wages.
That'll fall on deaf ears, just like every other comment made on here or to them.
- apfund and there we go folks… the party line. Are you sure Dropbox isn’t in the politics game because you sure do avoid explaining things. And what’s even funnier is smaller companies without Dropbox's massive resources have managed to support external drives.
The above is exactly why you’ll lose customers. Ok folks, so I just installed sync.com > 6TB Solo Professional plan and ran some tests.
WOW they really improved since I tried like 10 years ago. I think this is the end of Dropbox if they don't offer better storage soon.
It's perfect really. I'm not renewing my Dropbox yearly then. Bye.
- Emmet
Community Manager
Hello everyone,
We understand that you want an update on this issue as soon as possible, and our engineering team is working to get the external drive support reinstated. We are sorry that we don't have any updates for you at this time, as we know this can be frustrating. We have shared your responses with the team, and we will get back to you as soon as we've an update.
Regards,
Emmet
shinbeth I did say “if the matter is dealt with in a timely fashion.” We have heard repeatedly they are working on it, and I can only assume they are doing so. I’ve already enrolled with an alternate cloud storage provider and copied my folders over, so I’m not at risk of losing my external drive support, but the new service isn’t perfect —for example, I’m finding that iPad uploads of even the tiniest pdf files are taking forever, while with Dropbox they executed immediately.
So truly, if I had my druthers, I’d druther stick with Dropbox and keep my external drive support. Truth is truth.
