Continually backup EXTERNAL hard drive to Dropbox

[webdevguy]

Our company has a few consultants who do graphics/video work for us. The problem is that all of their work is on their own external hard drives (due to limited space on their laptops.) I would love it if dropbox could constantly sync with them, but, as I understand that's not supported, or it can cause issues if the external HD is disconnected suddenly. The thing is, our company needs to have constant access to all of these files. We use Office 365 so dropbox integrates well. Any suggestions as to a solution? My goal is to (1) always have their work backed up in the cloud and (2) have constant access to their source files.

[Rich · Accepted solution]

The first thing to remember is that Dropbox IS NOT a backup solution. Yes, it has some backup-like functionality, but it has never been intended as a backup service and should not be used as one, especially in a business environment.

The only way to accomplish what you want with Dropbox is to have the Dropbox folder located on the external drive (NOT recommended and not officially supported) and then move their data into the Dropbox folder. As you alluded to, you need to be careful that Dropbox is not started when the drive is disconnected and that the drive doesn't become disconnected while Dropbox is running. Under certain circumstances, that could cause Dropbox to read it as a deletion and start to remove data from your account.

The only other solutions would be to use a third-party service to continually sync data from their external drive to the Dropbox folder located on their internal drive. Something like Microsoft's SyncToy for Windows can accomplish that. Not sure of an equivelant for Mac.

[Jay · Accepted solution]

Hi there, it is true that external drives are not recommended for keeping the Dropbox folder, since disconnection of the external drive can lead to file deletion.

We can’t really offer an alternative solution to your request, unfortunately. You can try the suggestions by Rich, but as we always say, if there is an issue with the third party app and the syncing, you’d need to contact them for support.

[jsharp03]

That statement seems bizarre to me. If it's not a "Backup Solution" then what is it? 

[Mark]

Its a syncing tool as Rich said.

Its designed to replace USB pens and make sure that the data on device 1 is the same as that on device 2, 3, 4, etc.

[umiyosh]

> The first thing to remember is that Dropbox IS NOT a backup solution.

If so, why does DropboxPlus plan hold 2 Tbytes of capacity? In today's SSD becoming standard, isn't this capacity useless? The Internal disk on a standard laptop is a typically small size compared with 2 Tbytes.
If Dropbox has a capability as a backup feature of external drive, This useless capacity would be used effectively and breakable external storage would have a recovery capability.