Disaster: Dropbox removing external disk support for Mac users :(

[Jon C.10]

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-an-external-drive-and-onedrive...

https://help.dropbox.com/installs/macos-support-for-expected-changes

Just confirmed this with DB support (see below).  Gutted - been with Dropbox for years and our entire video team flow is based around it 😕

>Hi there, I read today that you are scrapping the ability to store the Dropbox folder on external disks, on OSX. I'd like to ask more about this please.

> Hello Jon, and thank you for contacting Dropbox Support. My name is Joseph, and I will be more than happy to look into your request, right away.  

That is correct Jon, as part of the Dropbox for macOS update, the Dropbox folder must be located in ~/Library/CloudStorage.

>This is a showstopper for us, and will mean we have to move to another service. We have a large distributed team using DB for video work, no way it'll fit within internal drives.
Is there a workaround?

> I totally understand and I apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, there is no workaround on this as changing the location of your Dropbox folder is no longer supported by macOS.

>This change doesn't seem to have hit us yet - we're running a variety of machines inc Ventura
What will trigger its enforcement? Can we stay on an earlier OS or Dropbox version?

>The updates happening automatically every time the Dropbox app is restarting, for example if your device never restarts it should maintain the older version but we can't guarantee full functionality on older versions of the application.

>So what will happen - if we have a Dropbox folder on an 8TB drive and a tiny internal drive - will it try to clone stuff across and eat up the space? What's the mechanism?

>That's right, it will try to move the content on your internal drive until it has no space and gives you an error.

>Is Smartsync still supported? I.e. will it move stuff to being online only if it won't fit?

>It is, however it is now known as online-only.

[ArthurPix]

@ms25 W hear you loud and clear. The problem is that DropBox users with external drive installations are between a rock and a hard place, with no guarantee that the temporary fix of using the "old" version of DropBox may not always work. So these users are on borrowed time. It's been months since the new guidelines were announced, and although we've been told that DropBox is "working on" a solution to allow us to keep using external drives, we've been given no dates — not even a target date! — for a solution to be released.

[TRO_Berlin]

We have a Dropbox Business with unlimited storage and multiple Workstation Macs that need their production-files available offline all the time. It is about 4-5 TB per Workstation that needs to be available offline. Right now we have Thunderbolt RAIDs or internal PCIe RAID Cards (MacPro) with 12-16TB of available storage. Dropbox is configured to be on these external storage devices.

It works perfectly fine right now, but of course we are still running the "old" way of dropbox. We did not get a popup to upgrade to the new version yet.

If the new version gets pushed to our workstation, we will have to look for an alternative solution. Blackmagic CloudStore? Linux Server running Dropbox and sharing the folders via SMB on a 10gbit network maybe? OneDrive? 

I am really hoping for an official statement and solution by Dropbox that solves this problem.

[UKD]

@TRO_Berlin I don't know if you can run a server like that with the "new" Dropbox. There is so little information provided by Dropbox that you really are just flipping a coin and see which side comes up with the information do we have.

What we do know is that as of right now the new Dropbox will require each machine to move the location of their Dropbox to an internal drive. That means that if you run a server then that server will need to have physical hard drives. If each member of your team then requires access to 4-5TB each locally then that server will need all the files downloaded. That in turn leaves you with a dilemma, why have Dropbox? You may as well have a local server with physical hard drives with all the data on it and then everyone connect to those hard drives. Yes there's a performance issue because of the network but then that becomes an internal IT issue etc etc.

I don't think Dropbox have thought this through but most of us have kind of agreed they have turned this whole situation in to pile of dog****. each of us have had to look at our own situation individually and work out what is best for us. Me, I'm moving everything off from Dropbox and am moving it to SYNC dot COM. 

Other issues come in to play like speed of upload and download, accessibility, durability etc etc. That is an individual choice and something you will have to work out I'm afraid. I personally don't mind SYNC dot COM. It's slower than Dropbox on the upload and download and I am still uploading all the data and so far have only managed to get about 3TB of data up out of about 9TB overall that I will need on there. This has taken several weeks so it is from my side very very slow.

Good luck.

[ArthurPix]

@UKD Well said. As I’ve mentioned before, as an “average” power user who needs Dropbox mainly for making my raw still photo files available everywhere without prohibitive expenses from adobe, SYNC dot COM is plenty fast enough. I’ve been running it for three or more months now, and, apart from a problem with a buggy new release of the desktop app. Sync has operated as flawlessly as Dropbox did for me, with their lower speeds probably accounted for by the end-to-end encryption that makes me feel so secure.

As always YMMV depending upon your uses, and if those uses include by Video files, you may want to consider pCloud.

Alas, the one leg up that DropBox will probably a,ways enjoy is the enormous and active user community that’s active on this forum,

[ArthurPix]

@TRO_Berlin I’m afraid you may have to experiment with Dropbox alternatives if you move from here. As @UKD and I have mentioned, SYNC is working for us, but one other user has found it quite unsuitable for his 400Gb files, and has moved to pCloud. ONE NOTE that I would like to emphasize is that many of my older files synced on One Drive have been irreparably corrupted and for that reason I cannot recommend it to Mac users like myself.

[beenyweenies]

I'm not sure what exactly is going on, but I just checked my Dropbox app (I'm on Ventura 13.4 and Dropbox v178.2.763) and noticed that it had me signed up for the beta version, with a button to leave the beta. When I clicked this, Dropbox reloaded itself and the interface was back to the prior version, INCLUDING the option in the "Sync" tab to change the Dropbox folder location! I set this to my external drive and it worked!

So I don't know if DB is intentionally rolling back this mandatory File Provider thing, or if I just got lucky. Either way, it's working!

[ArthurPix]

@beenyweenies Thanks for your valuable input. It’s encouraging, since it seems to indicate that DropBox might understand our wish to continue installing the program on external drives. If any newcomers have an experience to the contrary — or similar to that of @beenyweenies  I’d love to hear about it.

[rockdirector]

This is a lousy situation to say the least, but my question is:

In the short term — apart from losing LAN sync — I shouldn't expect compatibility or file loss issues if I were to update my mobile Macs but leave my "server" (i.e. my only Dropbox instance that retains ALL files locally on a RAID5) running the final pre-update version?

I have been hesitant to update some of my systems for this reason, as the recent suboptimal finder integration still beats being unable to keep fit a 1.5TB Dropbox on a Mac Mini with 500GB of SSD.

Thanks

Dan

[ArthurPix]

@rockdirector Mmmm, I wouldn’t risk it. I mean, what are the upsides? Almost nil. I personally have no experience of doing what you’re tempted toward, but would not rush into doing so. I fear the possibility of file corruption as well as the possibility that the Dropbox app might force all of my units to run the same (newer’ release. As I say, I have no experience of doing this, but the downsides are so great that I myself would not risk this unless a Dropbox engineer directly promised me it were safe to go ahead.

[rockdirector]

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@ArthurPix wrote:

@rockdirector Mmmm, I wouldn’t risk it. I mean, what are the upsides? Almost nil. I personally have no experience of doing what you’re tempted toward, but would not rush into doing so. I fear the possibility of file corruption as well as the possibility that the Dropbox app might force all of my units to run the same (newer’ release. As I say, I have no experience of doing this, but the downsides are so great that I myself would not risk this unless a Dropbox engineer directly promised me it were safe to go ahead.

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Agreed, thus my ask here.