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.

[UKD]

@ArthurPix I’ve got 4TB on my laptop but I did that for the express reason of transferring or needing access to large files if I travel and fast. Plus business was super good so I could splash the cash and upgrade everything I could, which I did, to the max. i9 processor, Radeon Pro 5500M graphics card, 64GB Ram etc etc.
At the time where I was the Government was also giving a 25% tax break on investment in equipment too so I did my whole company and bought new machines for everyone.

At no time was the dreaded 🦠 around or any hint of what was to come. I did also invest in external drives too and in fact all my staff mainly have 1TB internal drives with cloud storage on their 5TB external drives.

The biggest data users are my video guys. I moved them on to Windows PCs though a few years back because Apple didn’t have a machine powerful enough or had anything in the pipeline. They went from trash cans to full size desktop powerhouses. I don’t have to worry about them obviously and even then they’re equipped with a 1TB nvme internal, a secondary 2TB nvme internal AND an 8TB internal conventional hard drive.

Overkill I know but I just did because it was all cheap at the time.

[ArthurPix]

@UKD I completely understand, would have done the same and did the same in my Windows days — when I typically had a 2T internal drive supplemented by secondary internal drives (a blessing for Windows users that I neglected to mention), sometimes in mirrored configuration, which I used for my online cloud providers, but didn't consider them internal although technically they were.

The differing configurations for Mac and Windows users have a lot to do with Windows instability, IMHO, since I typically used them for often-needed Acronis backups.

In any case, I wish there were a way in MacOS to denote at least one Thunderbolt external drive as internal!

[UKD]

@ArthurPix if only Apple allowed that but sadly they're very restrictive, which I kinda get and has been one of their major pluses, they build the hardware and the software so it should just work, which it does nearly al of the time.

Sadly with advancements in technology I'm noticing the consumer is actually getting less choices. Even with this situation, whilst there will be 2 choices, don't upgrade but accept the lack of auto-downloading etc etc and other features (is that right?) or upgrade and lose the ability to store on an external drive. I don't really see a plus here for the customer.

Maybe that's what we have to accept for technology to move forward, I don't know, but they seem like sh*tty options to me, especially when other companies seem to have managed to allow external drives with their cloud offerings.

What I find amazing is that this topic is 38/39 pages deep so you'd think that someone may have taken notice and passed it up. The guy the other day said he had passed it up but the only answer was the same robotic one we've been getting for months. It seems they either don't care, can't be bothered or are just wishing we all go away.

Well it seems some of us are going away. Away from their subscriptions anyway. LOL. This is what businesses get for not listening or even engaging with their customers. 

[psalcal]

OK here's an interesting thought.  I now have gigabit up and down via fiber connection.  

A while ago there were attached storage devices which one could essentially use to duplicate what you can do with Dropbox or similar.  Does anyone have any recommendations for what else is out there?  I remember the old WD drives which acted as online storage, but that was a while ago and those were not great.  Anyone know what is out there which might work?  

[UKD]

@psalcal yes I remember those. Never used one though.

You can do what you’re thinking off with a NAS. In the past they were a bit clunky but they’re much better nowadays. I have a Synology NAS and they’ve had Synology Drive out for quite a few years. I’m testing it out now as I have about 10TB of archival work that I am giving my team access to on the NAS instead of uploading it all to the cloud. I do know that Synology Drive does allow for external drive location AND selective syncing of files.

Depending on who you are sharing the files with and where they are based will depend on speed. If you have gigabit up and down just remember that if that is on a personal plan rather than a business plan your contention ratio may be much higher. That will slow down access in and out. It also depends on what you intend to do with it and how you ar sharing etc etc. 

I am not using Synology Drive on a day to day basis for our day to day work. I just don’t want to spend any more money right now on expanding my storage capacity internally and I am not sure how it would work with my guys being on the other side of the planet. Oh and I run my internet on 5G would you believe. I have a tower literally across the road from me so I get a cracking signal and excellent speed.

[ArthurPix]

@psalcal I want to confirm what @UKD just said. Yes, you can get what you describe with a NAS unit, and Synology is the name of the game, now that my (formerly) beloved Drobo has dropped off the map. Both the Drobo attached RAID (5D) and NAS RAID (5N) were simplicity itself, but the company may be in Chapter 11 now, and when they announced their 5D variants would not support MacOS Ventura, I dropped them like a hot rock, sprang for a much cheaper OWC Thunderbay and swapped out the drives from my Drobo, doing much the same with a Synology 1019+ NAS. 

Reviews of the Synology line are almost universally glittering, but I'm here to tell you that DSM 7.2, the current release of Synology's operating system, takes some studying to understand, let alone master.

Android Police, one of my most trusted sources for tell-it-like-it-is reviews, says "Synology’s DiskStation Manager (DSM) is among the most feature-packed NAS operating systems out there" and, as usual, they are not only correct but may have understated the facts. DSM 7.2 is THE most feature-packed NAS OS that I have ever encountered.

However, I recently, inadvertently, activated a backup that Pac-manned all 31 terabytes of double-redundant RAID on my NAS in about 48 hours. In a panic, I uninstalled Synology Drive to stop this rogue juggernaut from crowding out all the other stuff the NAS has been doing. Then I spent the better part of two stressful days uncovering what I did wrong.

It should go without saying that, had I been relying on my feature-packed NAS for cloud storage, I would have been effed. Conclusion: I ain't nevah doing that!

If you, however, are bound and determined to do this, I recommend buying a smaller unit than mine and dedicating it ONLY to the one task of housing online storage. Configure it as a double-redundant RAID and give it one heck of a great UPS. Good Luck!

[ArthurPix]

@UKD BTW, the Dropbox feature that you're emulating with your NAS — using it to share a single 10T folder with your team — seems to me much safer than turning your NAS into a permanent Dropbox. In fact, this is the sort of task for which a NAS is perfect.

NOTE: Personally I'd sleep better with the shared folder also backed up on an external drive,  or at least protected on my NAS with a redundant RAID. 

[psalcal]

@ArthurPix I have a few synology NAS devices at work and have used them in the exact opposite way.. they were used to store media which was then backed up (using Synology backup software) to cloud based services.  

It's interesting this conundrum.. I have very much liked the option of just relying on dropbox for all the hard work, but at the same time I'm tempted to take it on myself.  

Thanks for sharing your knowledge.  

[UKD]

@ArthurPix @psalcal I’ve used Dropbox as my main storage but then backed up those same files on my Synology NAS. I also have connected to the NAS a hard drive to back that data up too.

When you lose data once you don’t do it again and I learnt, backup, backup, backup. Failure to do so and you put your livelihood at risk.

When I was in the office I used my many NAS’s as the main storage and backed them up to Dropbox. Now the whole company works in the reverse as we all work from home now. Funny how things change.

[ArthurPix]

@UKD Your story sounds very familiar to me as well.