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Forum Discussion
Disaster: 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-on...
I think it's either kill off it's user base under the guise of "security and protection" or get us to stump up insane amounts of money for internal storage.
Juts look at Apple's range of products. They've never been more complicated. I've been an Apple user for close to 30 years and it's never been as insane as this.
I'm not sure if this is just an Apple issue or a Dropbox and Apple issue or what but it's never been harder running a business than now, with WFH, Data security, storage, computer types, spiralling taxes...
I'm actually fine with Apple's new computer types — especially the Mac Mini M2 Pro, which I'm thinking of buying for my wife—but the advantages offered by this new Mac, and by my Mac M1 Studio Ultra, all go away if I have to spend thousands of dollars for internal storage. I've been super happy with my OWC 2T ultrafast Thunderblade, but I bought this explicitly to house my Dropbox and OneDrive folders. When OneDrive deprecated external storage I thought, well, that's Microsoft —and it appears that OneDrive also corrupted ALL MY PDF FILES 😤--but at least I still have Dropbox! So I proceeded to migrate all my OneDrive folders to my Synology NAS, and upgraded my Dropbox account.
Now that Dropbox wants to deprecate external storage as well, I've decided to find an all-around better cloud storage service. There are plenty out there and I've read some good words about Sync, both here and in online reviews. But before I go through all the mishegaas of switching all my devices (seven at last count) from one service to another, I need to know if Sync — or any cloud storage service, for that matter—has actually committed in public to supporting external drives.
Does anyone know of such a chimera, or am I crazy just to hope one exists?
ArthurPix I'm with you here totally. I haven't updated any of my teams Macs because of what Dropbox is doing. Plus with all the change moving over to M chips it's been a bit daunting as to what to go for. To upgrade to a 4TB Apple drive on a base Mac Studio is a £1,200 upgrade against the cost of the whole machine with 512GB storage of £1,999. That's just greedy.
The biggest problems have been the shear cost of internal storage by Apple and obviously this API change they implemented that seems to be stopping Dropbox (and maybe others?) from storing cloud storage like this on external drives. Who knows if this is an Apple ploy to extract even more revenue out of their professional customers or whether it's laziness by the developers at Dropbox, OR that the cost of implementing an external storage system that will talk with Apple's API is far too costly.
I think what grates me the most is the complete lack of communication. We have bloody paid for this and yet we seem to be the last ones to know about what's going on.
The question is as you say though, is there anyone out there that does offer an external storage version of their cloud service and if so do they intend to move to an internal storage only solution because of the new (not new now) API filing structure. So frustrating and time consuming.
I just wish a company could be honest about what's happened and is going on and what can and can't be done.
- From Sync
Unlike DropBox, with Sync upon installation you can select the location of the Sync Folder and move it to a permanently connected external hard drive. This will provide syncing and backing up of your files in real-time, for files placed directly in the Sync Folder. Sync will remain compatible with external drives for Mac users.
Get started today, risk free - all Pro plans come with a 30 day full money-back guarantee. - I haven’t tried it. Have asked them some other questions. Will let you know how they respond and I might try it for 30 days as there’s a free trial.
I’m interested in whether they can sync with a Synology NAS and if there’s a migration path from Dropbox to them. Very useful information on Sync. Thank you for looking into it and sharing. 👍
- Sync told me via email they planned to continue support for externals.
The problem is both Apple and Microsoft own their OS's and cloud solutions. Any 3rd party Sync software using these platforms will always struggle to fully integrate or will need to work around any changes, especially if Apple/Microsoft quote it's a security requirement.
Long term the outlook for Dropbox and others including Google Drive looks bleak unless a regulatory measure is put in place to assist or if Open source Linux desktop takes off in a big way.
Did you try it? Wondering if you liked Sync.
So all of my clients will need Sync as well, to collaborate with me?
Further messages from sync.com
One question relates to moving files from Dropbox to Sync. Is there a migration solution to do that?
Yes, migrating from DropBox is as easy as dragging and dropping your files into Sync. You can learn more on this here: https://www.sync.com/help/how-do-i-move-my-files-from-dropbox-to-sync/. We recommend using an external hard drive for the large amount of data you noted above.(Me) - Not quite what I meant but I do know there is a company called multcloud that does cloud to cloud transfers but there isn't an option for sync.com. That doesn't mean it's not possible to do. A side note on this though. I have used them before and cloud to cloud transfers are painfully slow, or at least it was when I used it a couple pop years ago.
And is there a way to sync a sync.com account with a Synology NAS?
Sync does not currently integrate or provide a way to easily backup directly from a NAS. This a commonly requested feature and we are looking into it, however it's not an option at this time.
