Dropbox folder on external drive

[Manasterski]

Hi, my disk on my computer is 500 gb, so I have an external ssd which is 2 tb. I would like to sync it with dropbox. Is it possible?

[Hannah]

Happy to help, @Cinosa!

If you were to do this from a Windows computer, it would be easier, as it is an option.

However, it's still not recommended as it can lead to file loss.

You can read more about the process here.

[Cinosa]

Hi Hannah,

Thanks again for your help – that's great. I'll look into this further, but that may be an option.

When you say it may lead to file loss, do you mean on the local drive or on the Dropbox, or both?

Thanks,

Cinosa

[Megan]

Hi @Cinosa, sorry to jump in here!

Both actually.

Should the drive fail to connect before Dropbox loads, or become disconnected while Dropbox is running, Dropbox could see that as a mass deletion and start to delete your files from the device, and these changes would then sync to your account online.

If you need anything else, let us know!

[Rich]

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@Cinosa wrote:

When you say it may lead to file loss, do you mean on the local drive or on the Dropbox, or both?

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Potentially both.

If your Dropbox folder is stored on an external drive and that drive were to become disconnected while Dropbox was running, or if the drive wasn't online when Dropbox starts, it could be seen as a deletion and Dropbox would sync that deletion to your account online, deleting all of your files. The same could happen if the drive were to fail, in which case you'd lose the local files due to the failure, and your online files if Dropbox were still able to sync.

[Chris Heath]

That wasn't my experience. When the dropbox app could not find the dropbox folder, it displayed an obfuscated message about reconnecting the drive. It did not automatically delete the contents of dropbox on not detecting the external drive. The choices displayed for the user were very unclear. The unintended result of the obvious choice to reconnect was to reinstall the contents of dropbox onto the internal drive which means having two dropbox folders; one external and one internal. I had to abort that second installation.

The unintuitive but more convoluted process was to click Advanced and through a series of clicks, reconnect with the external dropbox.

The first time dropbox lost the connection with the external drive was because I was plugging new equipment into my new computer and the USB C cable connection moved. The second time was when starting up, and I can't recall the circumstances around that instance. So far so good since that day.

Eventually, I will move most of my work from the dropbox folder on the external drive out of dropbox onto the same the external drive, reinstate the smaller dropbox folder back onto the internal drive and use that for current jobs, especially jobs that require me to use other computers to access dropbox. Then I'll let dropbox back up my external drive to the cloud. 

I get messages saying not to save video projects in dropbox anyway, so working off the external drive makes sense. I'll still use the internal dropbox folder for some video projects when I need to edit from other computers.

All dropbox needs to do is add some smarts to its software, so when it does not detect the dropbox folder that is on the unavailable external drive, it waits say 10 seconds or longer, checking to see if it reappears once the external drive is mounted, and if not, the app could display a message requiring the user to make a choice. One is to ask the user to reconnect the external drive and some advanced options for doing something different, e.g., reinstalling dropbox (from the cloud) onto another drive. It should never assume that the missing external drive and dropbox folder is a valid reason for deleting everything. This action should require a barrier, like a password before proceeding.

[Rich]

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@Chris Heath wrote:

That wasn't my experience. When the dropbox app could not find the dropbox folder, it displayed an obfuscated message about reconnecting the drive. It did not automatically delete the contents of dropbox on not detecting the external drive.

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It has the potential to delete the contents, and if you search the forums you'll find plenty of people that have had it happen to them. It's not a guarantee, but it is possible, so the appropriate thing to do is let people know about the possibility so they can determine if it's worth risking their data or not.

[Chris Heath]

I don't think this is an insurmountable problem for Dropbox to fix. Given how expensive Apple's internal SSDs are, there are a lot of people moving their storage to external SSDs as they upgrade their machines, so this will be a growing problem for a few years until Apple install a decent amount of SSD capacity by default.

[richardx]

Dropbox does not wag the dog - the machines are the controllers that dropbox is to serve. When will they fix this bug in dropbox?