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Serious problem with Hard Drive space
Hi I have a major problem with disk space, and I just can't seem to find an answer to the problem. I have a little macbook with minimal HD space, hence why dropbox is very handy for me. I...
Rich
Super User II
Super User II
kaywert wrote:
However, dropbox has terrible support for external hard drives ...
Officially, they have NO support of external drives. Not only are they prone to issues like you experienced, but also loss of data under certain circumstances. The Dropbox client will now let you move the Dropbox folder to an external drive with a warning, but it's still not officially supported. The safest bet when trying to use an external drive with ANY sync solution is to just not do it. Loss of your data isn't worth it.
You might want to look into a disk space analyzer. There are some, like Disk Inventory X (I'm assuming you're on a Mac), that show your files in a graphical list with larger files being represented by larger blocks. It makes it a lot easier to quickly find the larger items on your drive. I use an equivelant application on Windows and they work great.
Rich wrote:
kaywert wrote:
However, dropbox has terrible support for external hard drives ...
Officially, they have NO support of external drives.
So it is worse than terrible :laughing:
Would it not be just as easy to implement a protocol that says "Woah! Your dropbox folder isn't where I am setup to find it. Please make sure your external hd is connected and click proceed" - effectively halting the sync process, leaving all files and account links in tact, and awaiting successful connection to the custom dropbox location before continuing on with sync? At the moment, dropbox rather inelligantly falls over the minute you turn on your laptop (external connected and everything logically in place) without question.
I appreciate this kind of use is clearly not how the powers that be at dropbox feel we should be using the service, so it's therefore not setup for that, but I would like to point out that there's nothing to stop or even warn an unsuspecting user from choosing their own dropbox location and going ahead with the setup and sync process.
I have a requirement to edit many reasonably large garphic and video files remotely from one computer, for use on another computer in a fixed location. Dropbox (or any other syncing application for that matter) is the perfect solution for this. The other option is to go back and forth with a memory stick, but aside from the obvious ball ache of fiddling with USB drives etc, there's the inherent risk of ending up with multiple versions of the same file and confusion over which version is which. Perhaps this is a unique situation and not worth the hassle of adding a feature to suit only me.
I appreciate this is not necessarily a thread about external hard drive support (and I am not a programmer so am possibly talking nonsense) but it's a constructive discussion none the less. And it's my dream to have my many GBs of working content at my fingertips whenever I need it :grinning:
Anyway, enough said on that I guess. Food for thought to any keen coders out there.
I have been using Disk Inventory X which is how I managed to find the other hidden folder. But cannot for the life of me see anything else related to dropbox which is taking up the remaining huge chunk of space.
Thanks for your time and info.
