External Hard Drive compatibility with Dropbox Backup

[jpeduto]

I am interested in upgrading my plan to the 2TB plan because I need to backup an external hard drive (WD-My Book for Mac) with approximately 600GB of old iPhoto files on it.  I cannot upgrade until I know that Dropbox Backup can access and backup this drive.  When I go to the Dropbox Backup section of the app, it only gives my Mac hard drive as an option even though the external hard drive is connected and viewable/accessible in Finder.  The FAQ section of Dropbox support says that it supports only certain types of external hard drives but I don't know what those drive types mean nor can I tell whether my external drive is one of those types.  I contacted Dropbox sales support and they can answer my question and they can't get me any tech support (makes me question whether I want to stick with Dropbox anyway but that's another issue altogether).  If I can't backup this drive through Dropbox Backup then I am not going to upgrade.  My free plan is enough for what I need otherwise.  

Can anyone help me figure out whether Dropbox Backup can back up my external drive and help me see it on the Dropbox Backup screen in the app?

[Walter]

Hi there @jpeduto - thanks for using Dropbox and welcome to our Community!
 

Storing or backing up your iPhoto files/libraries in Dropbox isn't really recommended. You can have a look at this discussion for some additional information, if you like. 

Also note that you can back up the following types of external hard drives to Dropbox Backup on Mac: HFS+, APFS, exFAT, FAT32 while encrypted APFS drives aren't supported.

I hope this clarifies matters and please let me know if you have any other questions. 

[jpeduto]

Thank you for the reply, Walter. The person in the link you provided is trying to do something different than what I’m trying to do.

I have two large old iphoto libraries that contain old photos stored on an external hard drive. Neither of these libraries is the one that I currently use and that is synced to iCloud with my phone and other devices, nor do I need them to be. I am looking for a service that will back up the file in a cloud server just in case something happens to the external hard drive. I am not looking to sync those libraries with iCloud.

In regards to the hard drive types, I already knew that dropbox only works with those types of hard drives. The problem I have is, I have no idea what those types are and I have no idea how to check whether my extra hard drive is one of those types.

[Walter]

Even though this is not my expertise, I found this article which can help with identifying the format of your external drive @jpeduto 

Feel free to take a look and let us know what you find!

[jpeduto]

Thanks Walter.  That article didn't help but I did find this link on eBay for the exact model hard drive that I am using.  (https://www.ebay.com/itm/233965044510?hash=item367967431e:g:dDQAAOSwBqhh5qQ~&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0I...). 

This article seems to show that this drive is "Pre-formatted in HFS+ Journaled for Mac" which is one of the formats that Dropbox says that it supports.

Now, with that being the case, can anyone tell me why when I go into the Dropbox App and go to the Dropbox Backup that it does not show the device even though it is powered on and connected to my laptop?  I can see the drive in Finder but not in the Dropbox Backup part of the app.

[Jay]

Hi @jpeduto, if the drive isn't located in the Dropbox Backup feature, then it means it wouldn't be supported for the backup process.

[dangoodall]

Walter, Dropbox, encrypted APFS is the recommended standard for external Mac file systems and this is a huge oversight that you appear to be in denial about.

You shouldn't really be advertising external drive backup as a gold feature - it's a beta feature if that.

[kendall0501]

@dangoodall,
I don't know if you found your solution, but I'm finding DB is kinda like the myth of big Pharma in that they don't want to offer an easy cure (solution), only a way to keep you on the medication (subscription). Easily allowing the back up of DB files to external drives ends DB business model.