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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://help.dropbox.com/installs/macos-support-for-expected-changes
Just confirmed this with DB support (see below). Gutted - been with Dropbox for years and our entire video team flow is based around it 😕
>Hi there, I read today that you are scrapping the ability to store the Dropbox folder on external disks, on OSX. I'd like to ask more about this please.
> Hello Jon, and thank you for contacting Dropbox Support. My name is Joseph, and I will be more than happy to look into your request, right away.
That is correct Jon, as part of the Dropbox for macOS update, the Dropbox folder must be located in ~/Library/CloudStorage.
>This is a showstopper for us, and will mean we have to move to another service. We have a large distributed team using DB for video work, no way it'll fit within internal drives.
Is there a workaround?
> I totally understand and I apologize for the inconvenience. Unfortunately, there is no workaround on this as changing the location of your Dropbox folder is no longer supported by macOS.
>This change doesn't seem to have hit us yet - we're running a variety of machines inc Ventura
What will trigger its enforcement? Can we stay on an earlier OS or Dropbox version?
>The updates happening automatically every time the Dropbox app is restarting, for example if your device never restarts it should maintain the older version but we can't guarantee full functionality on older versions of the application.
>So what will happen - if we have a Dropbox folder on an 8TB drive and a tiny internal drive - will it try to clone stuff across and eat up the space? What's the mechanism?
>That's right, it will try to move the content on your internal drive until it has no space and gives you an error.
>Is Smartsync still supported? I.e. will it move stuff to being online only if it won't fit?
>It is, however it is now known as online-only.
Interesting!
In spite of this thread, I renewed for another year back in November under the premise that Dropbox said they would not FORCE the update and you had to opt in. I'm on Ventura on a Mac Studio that restarts fresh every day, and am still fine with my 2TB living on an external drive. My 2015 iMac (back on Mojave) is also still doing fine with Dropbox on an external.
It's not in spite of this thread.. it's because of this thread, at least in part. At the beginning of this thread, Dropbox said there were NO other alternatives and dropbox would ONLY be supported on the system drive. Because of this thread (at least in part), Dropbox backpedaled a little and now says you can still use the previous version of Dropbox and store on external drives. So... thank those of us who have whined about this from the start. :).
Just weighing in on the recent comments on this thread. No one here should be arguing over whether a person should purchase enough internal storage to satisfy the new cloud storage mechanism. That is a personal choice, based on budget and need, and is not always realistic. I personally have 7TB of data and much more on the way. Macbook Pros max out at 8TB, and at an additional cost of $2,200. If that is a good plan for YOU, then so be it. But it won't be for most.
I'm going to reiterate my long term solution which has been working flawlessly, in case it helps others here. I purchased a 5-drive Synology DS1522+ NAS and loaded it with enough WD Red drives to give me 20+TB of data. One of the software packages that is included, Synology Drive, has local/cloud sync features just like Dropbox, so I can locally sync whatever project I'm working on at the moment for fast speeds, then switch those files back to cloud only when the project is complete to free that space up again. It works just as well as Dropbox. However, I decided to upgrade my network components to 10Gbe so that I can work directly off the NAS, and this gave me around 700MB/s write, 900MB/s read speeds, which is plenty for my personal needs. This entire setup cost me around $1,500, far less than Apple charges for around 1/3 the local storage on a new Macbook Pro. I ALSO pay around $10/month to back up all of my files to iDrive E2 cloud storage, which the Synology NAS does automatically every night, eliminating most risk from using local storage.
I upgraded to a base model MacBook Air with a 256 GB drive. I just use it for DJing and surfing the web. I did a Time Machine backup and restore. DB moved my folder to an encrypted folder that sits in the Library. The transition was a nightmare as I have 2+TB on DB. It clogged my Mac for a few days as I worked through getting it to online only.
My iMac Pro still functions as normal, though, with DB sitting on the internal drive. It's when you make a change that you'll have problems. DB support was very helpful and they escalated my ticket. Ultimately, it just took a long time to for DB to sort itself out and my laptop is fine.
