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Vlad Verbni's avatar
Vlad Verbni
Helpful | Level 6
4 years ago
Solved

iMac 2021 - Dropbox doesn't detect an external Samsung SSD drive

Hi all, I have the latest silicon iMac however keep all my files on a recently purchased external Samsung 1T SSD drive due to lack of hard drive space on my new Mac (256GB). So I wanted to sync my e...
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  • Vlad Verbni's avatar
    Vlad Verbni
    3 years ago

    The problem is solved. Essentially what has happened is that at the time when the dropbox app was installed, the external Samsung SSD drive was connected to iMac. So Dropbox the time of installation treated the external drive as a part of iMac hard drive. I removed the Dropbox on my iMac, disconnected the Samsung drive, and reinstalled the latest Dropbox app. The Dropbox instantly started backing up the data sitting on the external drive. Like I said: the problem is solved!

Jay's avatar
Jay
Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
4 years ago

Have you tried manually adding the drive to the backups list from the Dropbox site directly by clicking Manage Backups?

Vlad Verbni's avatar
Vlad Verbni
Helpful | Level 6
4 years ago

Yes Jay. Of course I tried that. Since Dropbox doesn't detect the Samsung SSD drive (connected to my iMac via built-in USB-C port), the only folders I can see after clicking on "manage backups" button is the ones sitting on my iMac hard drive. The option to choose the backup is only given when Dropbox is reading an external drive. In my case, it doesn't detect it.

  • Jay's avatar
    Jay
    Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
    4 years ago

    Thanks for the info, in order to look into this matter in more detail, would it be possible to reach out to the email associated with your forum profile?

    • Vlad Verbni's avatar
      Vlad Verbni
      Helpful | Level 6
      4 years ago

      Hi Jay.  Brett form Dropbox support has closed my ticket replying: “As you mentioned before, your external hard drive's format is "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". As mentioned before, the only formats that are detectable by the Dropbox Desktop application regarding Mac OS, are the HFS+, APFS, exFAT, FAT32.”

       

      As you probably understand,  Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and HFS+ (supported by Dropbox) is very same format type. This means that Dropbox doesn't detect my external drive when it should. So my ticket was closed without any further investigation. Very disappointing.

      • Megan's avatar
        Megan
        Icon for Dropbox Community Moderator rankDropbox Community Moderator
        4 years ago

        Hi Vlad Verbni, have you tried responding back to the agent? That should re-open the ticket, so you can troubleshoot further. 

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