Dropbox removing external disk support for Mac users

I've been cursing this issue for a couple of days now, as my shiny new M2 Studio's 2tb drive will never contain my 4+TB Dropbox files. I see some people are reporting that new installs are using an old version, but my download appears to be version 176.4.5108 which is the very latest. I've also seen that Dropbox is holding off on updating to File Provider API for those users using external drives... What I'd like to know is: which version would be compatible with Ventura 13.4 AND still allow me to use an external drive? I've found the link to different builds, I just don't know how far back I need to go...

That's still the old version. 

Alright, thanks. The web page says it was just released Wednesday (6/14)... only the beta versions appear to have higher version numbers. I'll give it a shot.

TheMainOne Sync is certainly not perfect, but their support for me has been almost immediate. It could be that my problems were simpler to resolve. I was having terrible trouble with an apparent slowdown, but they came back at me and admitted lots of users had been having trouble with the latest release of the new desktop app on May 23. They gave me an uninstall app and a link to the previous release. It solved everything, and I kind of wonder if at least some of your troubles stemmed from this. In any case, their pricing suits me and their speeds are just fine for my purposes, plus I never need to upload multi-hundred gigabyte files, which really does require special abilities, Good luck with pCloud and I’ll keep it in mind for the future.

marcosdutra YES, Sync works on external drives. I have its running on external drives with 2 different Macs.

ALSO, Google says it IS possible to run iCloud on an external drive. I am quoting their instructions and take no responsibility for failures here. That said, Google reports:

ms25 W hear you loud and clear. The problem is that DropBox users with external drive installations are between a rock and a hard place, with no guarantee that the temporary fix of using the "old" version of DropBox may not always work. So these users are on borrowed time. It's been months since the new guidelines were announced, and although we've been told that DropBox is "working on" a solution to allow us to keep using external drives, we've been given no dates — not even a target date! — for a solution to be released.

We have a Dropbox Business with unlimited storage and multiple Workstation Macs that need their production-files available offline all the time. It is about 4-5 TB per Workstation that needs to be available offline. Right now we have Thunderbolt RAIDs or internal PCIe RAID Cards (MacPro) with 12-16TB of available storage. Dropbox is configured to be on these external storage devices.

It works perfectly fine right now, but of course we are still running the "old" way of dropbox. We did not get a popup to upgrade to the new version yet.

If the new version gets pushed to our workstation, we will have to look for an alternative solution. Blackmagic CloudStore? Linux Server running Dropbox and sharing the folders via SMB on a 10gbit network maybe? OneDrive? 

I am really hoping for an official statement and solution by Dropbox that solves this problem.

TRO_Berlin I don't know if you can run a server like that with the "new" Dropbox. There is so little information provided by Dropbox that you really are just flipping a coin and see which side comes up with the information do we have.

What we do know is that as of right now the new Dropbox will require each machine to move the location of their Dropbox to an internal drive. That means that if you run a server then that server will need to have physical hard drives. If each member of your team then requires access to 4-5TB each locally then that server will need all the files downloaded. That in turn leaves you with a dilemma, why have Dropbox? You may as well have a local server with physical hard drives with all the data on it and then everyone connect to those hard drives. Yes there's a performance issue because of the network but then that becomes an internal IT issue etc etc.

I don't think Dropbox have thought this through but most of us have kind of agreed they have turned this whole situation in to pile of dog****. each of us have had to look at our own situation individually and work out what is best for us. Me, I'm moving everything off from Dropbox and am moving it to SYNC dot COM. 

Other issues come in to play like speed of upload and download, accessibility, durability etc etc. That is an individual choice and something you will have to work out I'm afraid. I personally don't mind SYNC dot COM. It's slower than Dropbox on the upload and download and I am still uploading all the data and so far have only managed to get about 3TB of data up out of about 9TB overall that I will need on there. This has taken several weeks so it is from my side very very slow.

Good luck.

UKD Well said. As I’ve mentioned before, as an “average” power user who needs Dropbox mainly for making my raw still photo files available everywhere without prohibitive expenses from adobe, SYNC dot COM is plenty fast enough. I’ve been running it for three or more months now, and, apart from a problem with a buggy new release of the desktop app. Sync has operated as flawlessly as Dropbox did for me, with their lower speeds probably accounted for by the end-to-end encryption that makes me feel so secure.

As always YMMV depending upon your uses, and if those uses include by Video files, you may want to consider pCloud.

Alas, the one leg up that DropBox will probably a,ways enjoy is the enormous and active user community that’s active on this forum,