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

No one who actually understands data management would call a Synology NAS backed up to IDrive a ‘clever experiment.’ This setup is just a lower priced version of what major corporations are doing with their data every day, and what you yourself claim to be doing with your Apple-provided internal drive backed up to Dropbox. And FYI I still benefit from being able to use Time Machine as you keep mentioning, my TM backups are just created on my NAS, then backed up to the iDrive, so I have incredible redundancy built in.

Either way, please note that my post very clearly did not say my way was THE ONLY way, I made it clear that it was just an option for people to consider.

And finally, I question your technical experience on this issue. You keep talking about editing/transporting 8k video etc. I am working with 8k/12k EXR files in a high-end VFX pipeline so I know all too well how these files behave and what the workflow is/should be. And you do NOT need 3,000MB/s reads to edit 8k video. Period. Many raw 8k formats top out at about 250MB/s and most professionals using 8k are working with proxies when their workflows require more than a few streams. I have never felt any throughput limitation working with massive EXR sequences directly from my NAS and its 900MB/s read speed.

So honestly that just leaves the cable. Well, not sure what to say on this. Most people are working at a desk, so the idea of attaching a cable to their machine just isn’t that problematic. You make it sound like it’s some risky, cumbersome, inconvenient thing to deal with. How is your machine connected to your external monitor? A cable. Not a big deal. Not risky. Not inconvenient. And because Synology Drive has Dropbox-like features you can sync files locally if you need to work remotely.

Anyway, to each their own. I’m not here to convince anyone to do things my way. I’m just trying to provide people with viable options.