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Dropbox removing external disk support for Mac users
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-...
>I feel your pain dude, I long stopped trusting Dropbox with large storage.
>I'm moving to Google which can store up to 30TB - problem solved š
Not wishing to de-rail this thread, but are Google publicly committed to providing Google-drive on External storage going forward?
I worked at a U.K college last year that used MS One-drive for site-wide backup & syncing, but it appeared totally incompatible with Apple creative apps. It literally couldn't backup Logic Pro projects, without giving errors, due to 'illegal filename characters' which were auto generated by Logic during recording/cacheing, so have discounted that from my Dropbox alternatives.
I too had a conversation with Dropbox support, where they refused point-blank to give any kind of refund (not that that's really the biggest problem), & simply blamed Apple for the Fiasco.
My yearly membership renews in June, so I'm taking the step of cancelling my auto-renewal today , & looking for viable alternative for my business & customers.
Aside from all the extra work & uncertainty this is causing, I feel particularly aggrieved as I have converted dozens of my customers to dropbox, in order to share workflows.
I will be emailing everyone to explain that their data is now unfortunately at risk, & that I am researching alternatives.
It makes me look incompetent for recommending dropbox in the first place.
Yeah I am aware of Google Drive limitations as a music producer, graphic designer, video editor and programmer myself so I intend to use G Drive as a backup to store all the stuff (about 14TB) I currently have on an external drive and since I don't want physical drives anymore (only keeping one forthcoming 8TB external SSD SanDisk v3 dongle to keep backing up my Macbook Pro Time Machine with it). Because the problem is Dropbox REFUSES to offer more than 2/3/4TB data plans for Personal or Pro accounts (I don't wanna migrate to this lame Business account, which I've tried before, and is a totally different product with 3-user system and all that, it's not allowing a smooth transition just the way Personal and Pro are).
So on G Drive I will store only large videos and .zips that I need there to offload my current external drive data on it. I will keep Dropbox to minimum on my internal Macbook Pro drive for files such as Logic, Ableton etc. indeed. Because I know Dropbox has no problems with file compatibility. I have also read that G Drive has file size limits, like 750GB per day, and 5TB for each file, than Dropbox doesn't seem to have (? - not sure about that) This could be an issue if I intend to upload like a whole image copy of my TimeMachine backup on G Drive (instead of Dropbox) as well, with stuff like CarbonCopyCleaner, onto it. But other than that, it doesn't seem to be too problematic.
It really is a shame that Dropbox is not offering 10-30TB plans just the same way G Drive is logically offering since 2020. Looks like Dropbox lives in the past. Who needs less than 10TB nowadays, people in India or Bangladesh with low internet and hard drive? lol
Yeah end of the off topic. But the lesson here (1) never trust Dropbox with external drives such as shown in this thread (2) Dropbox is not (yet) a satisfactory option for modern 2023 people from developed countries with professional storage space needs (10TB+) and (3) G Drive is not ideal since it's not as smooth (and fast) as Dropbox in terms of sync system, selective sync (G Drive having removed this feature that means your Mac doesn't index the offline files, but personally I don't care since it's more a storage space for me rather than a 'Dropbox' space there) and file compatibility (as you described for certain files it can conflict, it's not as smooth as Dropbox), but if used for certain file types (videos, .zip etc.) it's pretty awesome to be able to store 10TB to 30TB and ditch my mechanical 12TB hard drive instead, that we all know, will fail one day so it's better to have all your data on a Cloud (for me).
To fix all this and avoid storing data only on a Cloud I will soon purchase a Macbook Pro with 8TB internal (hopefully 12TB option coming with the M3 in mid-2024) or a Mac Pro with 2x8TB internal, and pray that Dropbox FINALLY extends the Personal and Pro plans to 10/20/30/Infinite TB option plans in 2024 or 2025 (and not the Business plan that as I explained before is not the same as Pro/Personal folder). Only then, I will stop my G drive and move everything back to Dropbox. And if Dropbox still refuses to comply, I will contact their Enterprise service, maybe I can pay their programmer to simply extend my current Pro plans to more TB (but I guess this will cost a fortune lol).
Last resort, I will build my own NAS but that's always risky and I've read it's slower to sync vs. having a Cloud like Dropbox (which is known for being super fast). And it's also an issue to only have one NAS in one physical location, in case my house burns or there's a burglary. So I guess I'd need two NAS in two separate locations at any given time. Quite a headache and not as real-time syncing as Dropbox. So again, Dropbox really has to fix their plan asap...
