We're making changes to the Community, so you may have received some notifications - thanks for your patience and welcome back. Learn more here.

Forum Discussion

rhinofeatures's avatar
rhinofeatures
Explorer | Level 3
7 months ago

Bi-directional syncing between External HD and Dropbox

Hi folks,

I'm trying to create a system for myself where I have a two-way sync between my storage on Dropbox and my main external hard-drive, connected to my home desktop. I also use two laptop computers for work (teaching) and for performance (music), and these activities overlap a lot. I use Dropbox to good effect across all machines, but I have not been good about backing everything up online and my other backups are split across various devices without good filing.

Basically I'd like to organise my filing with the external drive as a hub (4TB), with everything backed up on Dropbox as a mirror but not necessarily be present on the SSD on the desktop (to keep free space where possible). I imagine this will require 3rd party service. One issue I'm anticipating is that a 3rd party solution might run into problems where the external drive is not online and Dropbox might mistakenly think files were deleted. Hoping to get some insight and advice from users here.

Desktop
Dropbox Backup
Dropbox Pro
  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    7 months ago

    Hi rhinofeatures, currently, there isn't an official feature like that available via Dropbox. 

     

    There may be some other third party apps or services that can assist in syncing files to and from your external drive and Dropbox.

  • Hannah's avatar
    Hannah
    Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
    7 months ago

    Hey rhinofeatures, thanks for your post today!

     

    Have you looked into our external drive backup feature?

     

    This feature will allow you to create a backup of your external drive to Dropbox and have your backed up files accessible from the backups page on dropbox.com.

     

    Any changes you need to make, will need to be made directly from the external drive, as this is not a two-way sync, but the backup will be a mirror of your files on the external drive.

     

    Of course, I will leave this thread open for other users to contribute ideas and experiences, but if you have any questions for us, let us know.

     

    Cheers!

    • rhinofeatures's avatar
      rhinofeatures
      Explorer | Level 3
      7 months ago

      Thanks Hannah, but I'm specifically looking for a bi-directional sync.

      • Jay's avatar
        Jay
        Icon for Dropbox Staff rankDropbox Staff
        7 months ago

        Hi rhinofeatures, currently, there isn't an official feature like that available via Dropbox. 

         

        There may be some other third party apps or services that can assist in syncing files to and from your external drive and Dropbox.

About Apps and Installations

Have a question about a Dropbox app or installation? Reach out to the Dropbox Community and get solutions, help, and advice from members.

Need more support

If you need more help you can view your support options (expected response time for an email or ticket is 24 hours), or contact us on X or Facebook.

For more info on available support options for your Dropbox plan, see this article.

If you found the answer to your question in this Community thread, please 'like' the post to say thanks and to let us know it was useful!