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Backing up and syncing from external HD to the Dropbox folder issues
Hello,
I am getting mixed information from the Dropbox helpdesk and could use some help.
I’m a photographer. I have 6.5Tb of photos stored on my External Drobo hard drive. I work from that harddrive on my laptop in Lightroom. I want to keep on doing that but I want my files to back up and sync on line and I would like to be able to work from dropbox when I am not at home, and don't have access to my External drive.
So I want to back up 6.5 Tb of files from my external Drobo Harddrive to dropbox. I want it to sync automatically and I want to keep the files on my external and in dropbox. But not on my laptop. And the external isn’t always connected to the computer.
So I started the trial for the advanced business plan and was backing up files. Problem is that the files also get stored on to my computer… 6.5Tb…
I asked to de helpdesk before I started and explained exactly what I need and someone told me that the business plan would be great for me. And now someone else says that it isn’t possible the way I want it.
Am I the only photographer who wants to keep his files safe and doesn’t want them stored on line only?
Thanks, Daniel
Danman wrote:
Ok, so are you saying that I could sync my files from my external drive to dropbox and use smart sync to not let them be backed up on my computer. But they will remain on my external drive?
No. Unless you move the Dropbox folder to your external drive, which isn't suggested, there's no way to sync files with your external drive.
What I was saying is that if the Dropbox folder is on your laptop, and you use Selective Sync on a folder, it will be removed from the Dropbox folder and not your external drive. Dropbox can only interact with the Dropbox folder.
In this scenario with Dropbox on your laptop and your files on the external drive, any folders you want stored on Dropbox would need to be MANUALLY copied to the Dropbox folder, allowed to sync completely, and then you could remove them from the Dropbox folder using Selective Sync so they only remain online. Again, this is a MANUAL process where you will need to be vigilant about copying files to and from Dropbox as needed so everything is up to date.
Again, Dropbox will not do what you want it to do with your configuration. It's simply not designed for it. No cloud storage service that I know of will work the way you want it to.
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You might want to look into Carbonite.
Hello,
I was having same issue but I am not photographer, but need to upload aroun 1.5TB and doens´t have ssd enought to bring all data to my laptop and than upload and sync to dropbox. So after read almost every reply that you have I decide to give try and it works. I am not saying that this is the sollution for you problem and I complete understand you and your needs. Simple I HDD external with large amout of that and everytime you plug in a computer, he check what photos are new and upload them all. Simple, at least should be simple.
So I will explain in short words what I did to solve my problem. First My problem was backup to dropbox more than 1TB (more space that I have in my ssd). I have Business account with 5TB, so I create folder by dropbox website. Wait until finishes some other larges sync and when the folder appers on my desktop with the green icon that was perfect sync I click in that folder and choose the "smar sync" - > "online only", in a emplty folder. After couple of minutes start the test and sync by upload from website to that folder couple of large folders with plenty of files... Couple of hours latter my ssd didn´t storage anything and all files "virtual" are shown on that folder.
So maybe this can solve part of your problems and I don´t know if you change or increase some files in same folder, if, after you drag and drop this folder on the same place before, if the dropbox will check all files and only sync the new ones.
I can give you tip on "good sync" app that maybe can be used as you need to. You by some amazon storage like website data or similar and this app can check and sync folder, external drive, with ftp drive, secure ftp, webDav type of storage. Everytime you plug your external, you ask the app to check your external drive with your online storage and he will do it without any headache without even the files or folders with more the 256 charecters he didnt ask you or stop you because of that. You can customize almost everything, time schedule do sync, example during the night...If external drive was attached and mouted to the computer, everything should be fine.
I hope some of my words can help you on that.
Cheers
Monica
I have the same problem; also a photographer, athough only semi-professional, so my storage need is smaller - around 2TB. I have just come across Boxifier which looks like it will address this problem of backing up data from ext HDs onto Dropbox, but is not yet available for Macs (they say will be soon). Don't quite understand what Kathy said about 'backing up an ext HD 'to' Time Machine; the point of Time Machine is that it backs up TO an ext HD - it is not for offline storage., so far as I am aware. She mentioned Backblaze - but seems not to use it? Why?
- Hi I have exactly the same need and had exactly the same setup-up as @DANMAN, until you ruined it with your update to PROFESIONAL in May 2020. If what you say is true, about NOT being able to synchronise the ext HDD, I will have to give up Dropbox and find Another solution :( Besides a lot of Pictures, I also have my Companys file server on the Dropbox and it is WAY too slow via "smart sync" :( /magnusa
