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Forum Discussion
Sync with a network drive
Hi,
I have an external drive connected to my router which appears in the network as \10.50.1.1\Name
How do I sync my dropbox file to a location there? when I try to move the directory over there, I get a message that this is a network drive.
Thanks,
Tommy
Dropbox doesn't support network locations due to issues that have come up before.
Fully appreciate the idea behind Dropbox, but when there is TB's of storage available in the plans how many people would actually have a machine with that amount of local storage. In this day and age where Home NAS solutions are becoming more and more prevalent surely it is pertinent to scope the solution provided to meet new configuration and demand? I for example have a 3TB NAS at home where I keep my personal files, and photos that I would prefer to backup to cloud as well as sync back to from Dropbox from my phone without being restricted to my local laptop's limitiations
Yep, I have seen that, but not all NAS solutions have that capability built in and some can be expensive or appear difficult for most "home" users to setup. Just feel that there should be a move more towards providing an option that allows users full choice of NAS and the ability to sync to cloud solutions. I fully appreciate also that this isn't just a Dropbox problem but it is where the world is moving
So basically drop box is useless. No great surprise. I would be helpful if drop box synced away from the hard drive.
Tommy, you can keep your Dropbox folder local and sync the folders that you need from the network drive with Boxifier ( http://www.boxifier.com). It is an application that can sync any folder with Dropbox (including ones from external drives, NAS, network drives). Disclaimer: I am one of the authors so feel free to ask me anything about it: [Deleted email, no personal information please!]
Richard P.Super User alumni
I for example have a 3TB NAS at home where I keep my personal files, and photos that I would prefer to backup to cloud as well as sync back to from Dropbox from my phone without being restricted to my local laptop's limitiations
Quite a few NAS systems have a Dropbox client within which you can achieve that directly on the NAS itself. Its what I use on my Synology NAS.
- Richard P.
I fully appreciate also that this isn't just a Dropbox problem but it is where the world is moving
Until some significant things are fixed with the standard network filesystem protocols, I don't see Dropbox changing their stance on this.
For example, currently SMB has no requirement to propagate filesystem events to clients, so Dropbox only knows what's changed when it does a full folder and file scan on each start up - this is bad enough on local folders, it would be *murder* across a network!
I'm in the same boat at Bryan H.
I understand that the network protocols have limitations but why not add a simple ability to sync manually. I have a QNAP NAS with 7TB storage and like to sync some important files to Dropbox. There are apps for this in QNAP but they are far from reliable and fail during big file transfers. Heck i can even run a VM and run windows on the NAS for syncing with dropbox but i need some reliable app to allow me to sync my files from NAS to Dropbox.
I'm sure if we can put a man on a moon this can be solved as well if Dropbox really wanted to.
By defaulting the installation to the user folder Dropbox is creating even more problems with syncing profiles with windows server. VERY bad choice to install by default into the users folder.
Uneducated users should not influence the stability of your product and ability to work well with an operating system, both personal and corporate.
- Richard P.
Dropbox doesn't support network locations due to issues that have come up before.
