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Forum Discussion
DB doesn't see the external hard drive on Mac
Hallo everybody.
I'd like to try the new "Back up an external hard drive to Dropbox" feature, which I understand was added in August 2021, because I would like to synchronize on DB some files that I have no interest in keeping on my computer in order to share them but also to have a backup always available even on the move.
I have formatted a hard drive as APFS, as instructed for Mac but the drive is not seen in any way by the app. The instructions say that "A Dropbox window will appear, prompting a back up of your external hard drive" but nothing happens to me.
There is no way to directly tell the app to see the drive or tell the drive to be seen by the app in the Finder.
I have MacOS Catalina (10.15.7) on my Mac and the hard drive is physically on a TerraMaster DAS and formatted with GUID Partition Map. I currently only have a Basic account but am considering upgrading if the functionality suits my needs.
- Hannah
Dropbox Staff
Hi there Raffa_hello, thanks for joining us!
Can you please try quitting the app from the Dropbox icon in your menu bar and then relaunching it again from your applications folder, to see if that helps?
Keep me posted!
- Hallo Hannah, thank you for your reply: I've already tried closing and reopening the app from the menu. Not only that, I uninstalled the app and re-downloaded it from DB's site. After reinstalling it nothing has changed from before. 😞
- JayHi Raffa_hello, is the TerraMaster DAS physically attached to your computer using a USB cable? How does your computer itself detect the device, like an external drive or a series of drives?
Do you have enough space on your Dropbox account to backup your external drive?
Do you have a normal USB external drive to connect to your computer to test if it's the way that Dropbox detects the DAS?Hi Jay!
is the TerraMaster DAS physically attached to your computer using a USB cable?
Yes it is: specifically it is connected with a USB 3.0 cable + an adaptor USB 3.0/USB C, to connect it on the MacBook Pro (16", 2019).
How does your computer itself detect the device, like an external drive or a series of drives?
The single drive we are talking about is detected by the Finder as an external drive, as if connected directly; of course in the DAS there are many drives - five in total - and are all detected as individual drives connected directly.
Yesterday I wrote the drive was formatted as APFS, but here I read that MacOS Extended (journaled) is the same as HFS+ (which meets the required formatting) so I tried with MacOS Extended (journaled) and nothing changed... Now the drive is still formatted as MacOS Extended (journaled). Is what I read correct?
Do you have enough space on your Dropbox account to backup your external drive?
Yes: I have a base account with 3,8 GB still free and the files on the hard drive (copied there just for testing purposes) take up 440 Kb. But... if your question is literally if I "have enough space on DB to backup the whole external drive"... then... the reply is "No": the drive is 4 TB...! Maybe this could be a problem for DB...!?
Do you have a normal USB external drive to connect to your computer to test if it's the way that Dropbox detects the DAS?
Not in that moment but... I will try ASAP and will tell you.
Jay, for now I thank you very much for all the questions posed, let's see if we can figure it out somehow! I'll let you know about the "normal" USB drive connected.
- JayYou can also check the Dropbox desktop application, under the Backups tab, to see if the checkbox is disabled to hide all the external drive notifications.
