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Forum Discussion
socksinacan
4 years agoExplorer | Level 4
External drive backup complete, but vast difference in sizes
I used Dropbox to backup my external drive with 520GB of content. The backup is complete and Dropbox says it's in sync, but the size of my back up is only 428GB. Such a discrepancy scares me. Is t...
Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
4 years agoHey socksinacan, and sorry to jump in.
Is it possible to upload some screenshots of the backup size you see both on Dropbox and your external hard drive, perhaps?
Also, I’d like you to check the main folders located on your external hard drive and double check their size on Dropbox, so that we can see if there’s a specific folder that’s missing data.
Let me know what you find!
socksinacan
4 years agoExplorer | Level 4
Thank you for the response. I was able to get the screenshots. The Dropbox web app isn't showing folder sizes, though.
- Jay4 years ago
Dropbox Community Moderator
In the screenshot, it shows that the external drive backup is paused, so it possible isn't fully synced.
You can view the size of folders on your external drive on the site by following these steps.
Once you have the sizes enabled, and the drive shows as 'done' on the main Backups page, let us know if the folder sizes match with those on your external drive.
- socksinacan4 years agoExplorer | Level 4
Yeah, it's been doing that when I turn the backup sync back on. Shows paused even though I've turned it back on and the app has displayed syncing and then synced. It eventually displays correctly. I'll check out these size steps when I can get back in front of it. Thanks.
- socksinacan4 years agoExplorer | Level 4
Thank you for the size tip. I looked at the folder sizes in both locations, and two of the folders combined to a five GB discrepency. The rest were almost spot on between the two locations, with negligible differences. Certainly nothing to account for 80-90GB difference.
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