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Forum Discussion
Disaster: Dropbox removing external disk support for Mac users :(
In case anyone's unaware... if you're a Mac user storing your Dropbox on an external drive, you'll shortly lose that ability. https://talk.tidbits.com/t/dropbox-drops-support-for-storing-files-on...
Mark
Super User II
Super User IIHi iagdotme
So the simplest answer here is 'no'. Due to the changes Apple have made they are no longer allowing this. However, disclaimer here in that is the official supported line. There may be ways of doing so which involve tweaking / changing things BUT these wouldnt be supported by either Apple or Dropbox should something go wrong. At this moment I dont actually know of any, but, I imagine over time some will appear.
Thanks, Mark.
Would it be cynical of me to think this could be Apple wanting us to upgrade our Macs to ones with HUGE hard drives? 😉
I can't seem to find any explanations of what Apple are doing and that they are definitely no longer supporting external drives. I can't be the only person who needs to do this.
iagdotme UKD I think it's sad that so many of us suspect the new architecture is about Appel wanting to force us to buy more internal drive space — especially since internal drive space is four times (or more) expensive than similarly super fast external drive space, e.g. the latest Samsung EVO mounted in a suitable, thunderbolt 4 housing.
Sad, but also in keeping with mounting evidence of Apple's corporate greed at the expense of developers and users. This flies in the face of the Apple that Woz and Jobs envisioned. If I'm correct, Apple will soon have to pay the piper for this policy of "milk the users and developers for every cent they've got." European regulators will probably be first to force Apple to allow side-loading of apps, followed by the U.S. Senate. After they smell blood in the water, there will be more and more regulation, all thanks to Apple's insensitivity about their enormous size and clout, and how this is being g received by the public, It used to be that I LOVED my Apple devices. Now I use them because they're better, and there an end to it.
I hope we're wrong, since I have seen nothing in the new API stating outright that placing third-party online storage in an external drive is verboten. After all, I can install Ventura itself on an external drive and may actually do so in months to come.
But, I don't think we should be piling on when a Dropbox rep weighs in with news about what he or she is working on. Apple has NOT been very helpful to third-party cloud storage providers, ever, and they're not being helpful now. Absolutely, we should be pressuring Dropbox to work out a way to let us keep our external drives!
Just one man's opinion.
ArthurPix note there are storage providers which are already supporting sync with folders on external drives, like sync.com. So while I think part of this is indeed driven by Apple, I think the application of the tech and the response on the Dropbox side is clearly driven by Dropbox themselves and their corporate priorities.
Also.. noting I have had another chat with Dropbox support. They did not sound in this round of conversations like they were pushing their "blame apple and there is nothing we can do about it" answer. It DID sound like they were trying to find a solution. They stopped short of committing to having a solution though. But as we know, for the time being, they have not been requiring an upgrade to the latest version which moves the folder to the local volume. So I guess I'm hopeful they are seeing the light here.- Arthur pix but there’s no way a single ended non mirrored internal drive can compete with multiple SSD Raid Arrays of many Terrabytes, like we use.
I do believe Apple are doing it for reasons of security and I also think Dropbox will solve it and maintain the Status Quo. It makes no sense to think this is purely about vested interest.Bluebicycle Let me enlarge on this. There was a time, years ago, when I found that Finder was crashing whenever I uploaded files exceeding a certain size, not especially large, but let’s say over 30mb. I received some very helpful advice from a tech who told me that Dropbox, OneDrive and pretty much every cloud storage provider had to operate their magic by loading their software into a Finder or Browser extension — and that it was a similar state of affairs in Windows. This created an inherently unstable star of affairs — which could be more dangerous than subjecting me to the occasional crash. Because, as certain types of “hats” know very well, a predictable crash can also be called an EXPLOIT, which provides a large hole that’s perfect for for the injection of malware.
I know this problem was patched in a hurry, because there was an update after which I never experienced the predictable crashes again. But I’m certain that, ever since, Apple, Microsoft and quite a few third-party cloud storage providers have been laboring into the wee hours to create a VERY stable, inherently stable API for online storage.So I do agree with you that Apple did not create this new API for the purpose of selling internal storage, but to make MacOS, iOS and iPadOS more resistant to malware injection. Unfortunately, this also makes it much harder for cloud storage providers to support external drives. AND I agree with you that the ideal hardware platform for the online file systems like Dropbox or Sync is a RAID with dual redundancy, like the ones upon which you and I rely.
Let’s hope that Dropbox figures out how to support us sooner rather than later. While I’m rather comfortable with Sync.com, I’d much rather have an end-to-end encrypted Dropbox that supports external drives and, in particular, external RAIDs. Dropbox is unique among cloud storage providers in its creature comforts, and I’d rather have my cake and eat it too. make sense to you?
Agreed. This change leaves us beucoup screued.
I think DropBox wanted to sell to apple years ago but Steve Jobs was adamant that it wasn't anything worth buying and that 'mobile me' was going to be just as good (haha). even iCloud files is a poorly implemented option of something meant to do a similar job. But I think they want to sell more iCloud storage to everyone. They are pushing for subscriptions and service bundles like with Apple One and Arcade etc. For probably high proportion of Apple customers they won't understand the difference between more iCloud space and a service like drop box, and storage beyond 1 or 2Tb very rare. Then for the big boys that they have closer ties with, they are likely using their own proprietary synching or exchange type stuff that means these changes don't bother them. it's the usual 'Pros' that get the shaft.
