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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...
melking If by “work-arounds” you mean “ways to get Dropbox to work with external drives”— strictly speaking, I don’t think anyone knows yet, because the “no external drives” rule hasn’t yet been enforced. The stroke of doom will (apparently) occur in May.
Dropbox has, however, informally told us in this forum that it is seeking ways to keep supporting use of external drives. I think this means that our discussions here have caught someone’s attention.
But, if and when the new rule is enforced I don’t expect there will be anything you can do short of switching to a different provider.
At least a few of us have either switched or are preparing to do so. Count me among the cautious latter, looking twice before I leap.
Among alternative cloud storage providers, at least one — namely Sync.com — is on the record supporting use of external drives, according to a recent post by UKD . I’ve been investigating user experiences with Sync.com and so far, the reports I’ve seen are great.
Before going through the tsores of switching, however, I’m procrastinating until[ mid-April, hoping against hope that Dropbox will announce it has found a way to keep supporting external drives AND Apple’s new API.
Windows users are, I expect, SOL.
I continue to get more and more surprised about Dropbox.. allowing us to talk freely about competitors here is crazy, especially without addressing their long term plans for this. This message board seems just crazy dysfunctional. I wonder how many people are ready to pull the trigger on Sync in a moment? I'm one. I have a Sync.com account but it's the free version. I may move there depending on Dropbox. Your move Dropbox... but don't take too long.
fjazzfjazz UKD melking Bookpast I asked the Help Desk on Sync.com about the migration path and received an answer within an hour. Here's what I was told:
Migrating your files to Sync is as easy as dragging and dropping the folder into Sync. You can learn more here: https://www.sync.com/help/how-do-i-move-my-files-from-dropbox-to-sync/
________________________________________________________________________
Upgrade to a Pro plan, risk free - all Pro plans come with a 30 day full money-back guarantee.
Upgrade here:
https://cp.sync.com/account/getspace
Let us know if you have any other questions.——————————————————————--
I just tried out these instructions by moving a half-Gig folder full of PDF receipts. It executed quickly and, as much as I can ascertain by my tests, the files transferred accurately. I'll be investigating more throughly in the ensuing days and will report back on my results.
A couple of caveats:
1. When I first installed the SYNC desktop app, I was concerned because I couldn't find any icon on my desktop menu or in my dock. I subsequently discovered that the icon was there, but that I had too many icons for it to show. After removing a number of icons from my menu, I saw it, and used the CMD key plus my trackpad to move it toward the left side of the menu.
2. I can't find any settings to show the icon in. my dock. People using 27" monitors shouldn't experience any trouble showing th SYNC icon on the desktop menu, but if you have a 14" or smaller laptop, watch out for this.
I'm looking at it now because I will have to move 41TB off from Dropbox to another company and that's no easy feat.
I don't think people realise that if they have updated their MacOS already to 12.3 and above, that when Dropbox do launch their final update/new version then the software is going to start moving files for you to the new location (I believe anyway).
If that happens people are going to seriously screwed...
That is the most scary scenario I've heard this whole time. dropbox , is it true that 10.13 and above OS will make that when Dropbox upgrades it will start moving all files to a internal HD location?
- TheMainOne I am curious when you say slower, what is slower?
I am looking at archiving a huge amount of our files on to my NAS and the rest of the files we use to stay on cloud. Speed. Uptime and accessibility are our main goals and my team are spread in Europe and Asia.
My video guys have some hefty file sizes so the speed is quite important. ArthurPix I am also trying them out. I have decided to keep a huge amount of files on my NAS as an archive and only have online our active working files.
Going for the Pro Teams Unlimited version as we use a lot of space.
From what I can see the interface is a little basic in comparison to Dropbox's but that's OK. We'll get used to it and as long as we can share multiple files etc etc then I'm ok with that. Obviously you can do more with the online portal.
I've already communicated with my team about the possible impending change and they all just lurved that idea... not!! I am so looking forward to migrating everything over. Thanks a lot Dropbox.
Watch this space.... and I'll communicate back my progress
fjazzfjazz UKD I’m going out in a limb here because I rarely use Dropbox for file sharing or collaboration, and don’t think that’s going to change if I migrate. But from what I see in the “getting started” instructions, your collaborators will need to use Sync as well, and — while it’s conceivable that two different storage providers could create a joint-use framework — I don’t see much incentive for this to happen in the real world. For one thing, the engineers at Sync have created a true “Trust No One” environment, with real end-to-end encryption that only YOU have the keys to unlock. At Dropbox, the company’s engineers have keys as well, and I won;t go any further down that rabbit-hole. So you’re going to need to keep at least a minimum paid Dropbox account unless you can persuade all your coworkers to switch.
Hey there's my friend. Yes, I would sure agree with you that dropbox seems dysfunctional. But that would be my opinion of them overall. This is simply their latest manifestation of it.
From what I have heard, sync.com is benefiting from this snafu significantly. Although I haven't heard any numbers. So one would have to guess what significantly means.
Our company sure did go there and I have been thrilled. We pay $30 a month for two people in total. This gives us unlimited storage. It is slower than dropbox but I am doing just fine with it. Takes a little bit of getting used to but if a person doesn't have a huge number of terabytes, it could work out pretty well for them.
I'm glad to see you considering this. And hope all is well for you.
- Sync caps the speed at 40 Mbps.
