Backup, sync, external drives and local backup

[Luix]

Hi.

I want help to see if I'm doing the right thing here. Maybe I'm being dumb and you have a better idea for my problem. 

1. My computer has 500GB of space. 
2. I work on my projects locally and save them in an external drive (4TB) when finished (I have a backup of the external drive in another building). 
3. Every day I sync my computer to the external drive, also to backup "projects being done". 
4. So my external drive has two folders like: "Ready" and "Projects being done". 
5. My Dropbox is currently syncing my local "projects being done", so I have two copies (local and Dropbox).

Do you think it is a good idea to sync my external drive with the two folders to DropBox instead my local folder? If so, both folders will be back up in DropBox too. 

If so, who is the best way to do this? Should I unlink my account, delete the current content in DropBox and link to the external drive? 

What do you think?

Thank you,

Luiz

[Rich]

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@Luix wrote:

Should I unlink my account, delete the current content in DropBox and link to the external drive? 

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Syncing to an external drive can be problematic and is not officially supported. While it can be done, it is NOT recommended as data loss can occur under the right conditions.

[ryan l.8 · Accepted solution]

It really depends, it sounds like if anything goes wrong, your most recent work will be on dropbox, and your last sync of the files from your external HDD will be available via your offsite backup.  So for me this sounds like the optimal solution and I wouldn't really change anything unless for whatever reason you feel that in the event of some problem, you want to access your folders from your HDD quickly, rather than wait for the external backup copy.

You can have the google drive folder located on an external drive, but it can cause some occasional issues if it isn't connected 24/7.  In  my experience it's usually fine, it'll just wait until you plug it in and not do much in between.

[Luix]

Thank you @Rich and @ryan l.8. This helped a lot. I didn't know the external drive could be a problem to sync. I was thinking it would be simple. 

And yes, it's working in the way it is now. It was more to try a better solution. I will keep as it is for now. 

Thank you again. 

[DaveNuck]

I've read that, too, but I don't see a downside.

If the drive has a problem, everything is still on the cloud.

Having a 4TB drive be my "Dropbox Drive" allows me to keep all files "local" and eliminates the frustration when files mysteriously sync on my harddrive, fill it, and crash my computer -- causing about 2 days of very frustrating fixes.

I've been using an external drive for about 6 months and I'm really happy with the way it's working.

Your mileage may vary.

[Luix]

@DaveNuck 

Thank you. Very interesting. I'm really tempted to give it a try now. hahaha.

But how do you manage it? Do you make changes to the files in Dropbox, or just in the HardDrive? I do not plan to update anything in Dropbox site directly, just sync what I have in the External Drive. 

Thank you!

[Rich]

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@DaveNuck wrote:

I've read that, too, but I don't see a downside.

If the drive has a problem, everything is still on the cloud.

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And there lies the problem. If the drive has a problem or becomes disconnected while the Dropbox application is still running, the app could see that as a mass deletion, at which point it would start deleting the files in the cloud. This isn't a theory. It HAS happened.

Are your files worth the risk? If you run on an external drive, best to have your own backup methods in place.

[scotto]

I'm a noob on this site so I hope this is a reasonably good place to ask my question because it seems directly related to this thread.

Background: I'm a Mac User running macOS Big Sur (11.4) on a MacMini (2018) with 500 GB SSD of Internal Disk Space. I use an application called Capture One, a photo editing application (Apple Photos and Adobe Lightroom are similar applications that are more common). I have 1 TB of Photos that are stored on a 2TB External SSD. These External SSD files are referenced by the Capture One Library that resides on my Internal SSD. Capture One requires that these files are not on a network drive and not on a cloud. They need to be accessible through the file system.

Question: I've created a Dropbox Folder on the 2TB SSD with my Dropbox 2TB Subscription. All of my referenced files are stored there and generally the SSD is always plugged into the MacMini. I've been using Dropbox as a Cloud Backup Solution (this term may not be technically accurate, if so please correct me) for my files while allowing Capture One to access them through the File System. After 6 months, no problems, but I have seen some weirdness once or twice. I've been meaning to do this research so here I am. Despite having no problems, I see that on this thread that this is not a supported method and can result in dataloss. I definitely do not want to have a problem and prefer to use Dropbox in a supported manner. Is there a way to use Dropbox in a recommended way to support my workflow. Your recommendations would be very helpful. Thanks!

[Jay]

Hi @scotto, you can check out my post on how having your Dropbox folder stored on an external drive could cause data loss. 

It should contain some useful info there.

[scotto]

Jay, thanks for the quick reply. I’ll take a look and see how I can adjust. Thank you for your help!