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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-...
From a Reddit user: "It is linked to your home user folder location. If you move your home folder to an external drive, dropbox goes with it. And for that matter, so do google drive, one drive, box etc."
This may be a solution - will require testing.
You can install the entire Mac OS on an external SSD drive. Why not do that and then run apps, like Dropbox, off of it too?
It's not a real option to only run off an external drive when you need Dropbox use. Sorry, that's just kinda crazy.
dbox_ you really need to answer with your future plans for this. I'm about to come due for renewal later this month and would love to either move on or keep dropbox forever because you HAVE COMMITTED TO HAVING AN OPTION WHICH ALWAYS WORKS for external storage.
In the meantime it's working fine on the older non file-provider version, but I REALLY NEED TO KNOW if Dropbox is committed to a longer-term answer.
100% support this. Its been around a year now and its either time to be clear about supporting external drives on MacOS or its time to tediously move onto another service....
I think we just have to sit tight for a bit longer. File Provider is new it's not got half the features of the old API. LAN Sync for one thing.
There is no way I can see in the long run that syncing to external drives will not be possible. There must be millions of DB customers who would fill up their internal drives in a single day otherwise.
Just keep using the old API for now it still works perfectly on the latest MAC OS.I'm back here after a few months and I see that almost none of our requests have seen progress with Dropbox tech teams, as I expected. Meanwhile, I'm seeing a lot of layoffs in tech lately. So I'm becoming worried, will Dropbox follow suit? π I mean no innovation = company going under usually. That would really be detrimental to us and we need a backup plan if they're going this route.
You can install the entire Mac OS on an external SSD drive. Why not do that and then run apps, like Dropbox, off of it too?
Why not start with that even the best external Thunderbolt drives are significantly slower than SOC SSD throughputs? My M1 Max's real world internal SSD speeds are ~3400 MB/s write and ~3000 read. A fairly pricey TB4 Sandisk G-Drive SSD manages ~2400 MB/s read/write. Change that to a USB-C Sandisk "Extreme" or Lexar "Professional" SL-600 drive and I get throughputs of ~1000 write and ~750 read maximum. Modern MacOS is designed to be booted off a fast, reliable SSD, and a jiggling cable is a huge fail point, end of story.
Well everybody thinks they have the answer. Find me a Mac with a 16 TB internal drive or more that will host all my video projects that I'm working on currently. Maybe then you'll have a point.
How about understanding others workflows before trying to solve it.
And have you seen the prices Apple is charging for large internal SSD?Running all projects off the boot drive is not desirable for us. Our Sonnet 4x4 PCIe cards with nvme drives give over 3'000 MB/s (JBOD) and 11'700 MB/s (RAID) speeds, but are seen as external. No 'jiggling cable'.
I am hoping Dropbox will find a solution asap. The current situation paralyses our updates and upgrades.
"My M1 Max's real world internal SSD speeds are ~3400 MB/s write and ~3000 read. A fairly pricey TB4 Sandisk G-Drive SSD manages ~2400 MB/s read/write."
"Modern MacOS is designed to be booted off a fast, reliable SSD, and a jiggling cable is a huge fail point, end of story."
This, exactly brother! As a freelance working with high-end clients in music production, HD movie production etc... I have no time to waste on external hard drives! Even Sandisk aren't even close to M1/M2/M3 Mac's internal SSD speeds of ~3400 MB/s write and ~3000 read. And the cables are also not an option for me. I want everything on my Mac locally for SPEED and CONVENIENCE purpose of having EVERYTHING at disposable ON A SINGLE DISK.
Totally happy with my current M1 8TB Mac and will upgrade to M4 when they're out (and probably 16TB SSD on MBPs in a near future). The only thing that is letting me down currently is Dropbox, since it only offers 3TB to Professionals (+1TB only extra). I'm short of 4TB. Shame on you Dropbox for not offering such a simple feature as adding +4/X TB extra and take our money... ridiculous!!
This is an interesting idea. Crap that this could actually be the only solution. I have ran off external drives off and on over the years. mainly when I am doing an upgrade of the OS and want to test the new OS and essential programs etc. So in theory you could run the OS of the giant RAID drives, I mean this can have issues for laptop users who ever want to you know... be mobile. But if you did the install of the OS on the external drive then you would have all that space "internal" as far as the OS is concerned and on the correct drive etc. But not the best work around. But for static machines maybe this would be okay. Why do apple have to break something that is working so well for since it was getdropbox.com
