You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
Jon C.10
2 years agoCollaborator | Level 8
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...
- 4 months agoHi Everybody,We’re excited to share that external drive support for Dropbox for macOS on File Provider is now available for testing as a beta feature. This is available to some users today and will be available to additional users on a rolling basis. In order to be eligible to test this feature, please follow the instructions in this Help Center article.Keep in mind that participation in beta programs is subject to the certain terms and conditions. There are certain additional participation requirements:
- This beta is only available to US-based users
- You must be on macOS 15 beta
- You must have an external drive that is APFS formatted and encrypted
Please let me know if you have any further questions!
ArthurPix
Collaborator | Level 10
This is a bombshell for the entire Mac community. As everyone knows, Apple charges a fortune for extra terabytes of SSD storage on its Mac Studio, Mac Mini, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro computers, and it's impossible to increase internal disk capacity after you purchase your computer. Up until now, however, it's been possible to augment a skimpy internal drive with very fast and cheap external SSDs.
In fact, I have been pricing out a new Mac Mini M2 with 512 Gigs on an internal drive, supported by 4T of external storage, on a wicked fast Samsung SSD inside a very inexpensive external, enclosure. This is a bargain, given that Dropbox and other apps can be placed on the external drive.
Now, however, it seems that either Apple or Dropbox — or both companies working in tandem to skr3w us consumers--are making this impossible. Soon we'lll all be victims of Apple's greed and monopolistic power to squeeze us for every dollar they can extract.
My only response can be to stop using Dropbox and find an alternative. Microsoft OneDrive has already deprecated use of external drive. And, given that it irreparably corrupts PDF files, I can no longer recommend it to anyone.
I now must throw myself on the mercy of the Dropbox community. Is it really true that MacOS will soon make it impossible to use a cloud service on an external drive. If so, what can we do t work around this? If not, which of the many alternate cloud services are the most reliable and serviceable? HELP?
TheMainOne
2 years agoCollaborator | Level 9
No, not really. It's just that dropbox doesn't want to do what it takes to make it work.
Sync.com is a fantastic alternative. They are a little bit slower, but they just sped up their service as well. So it's still a bit slower but much better. I don't know what the actual numbers are but I would absolutely try it.
Here's what I really like about them… They are private. They cannot see what you are uploading under any condition. And that's unlike dropbox that says openly they will share your stuff with anybody they want to. Drop boxes terms of service are horrific it should be illegal.
In addition, dropbox is a filthy woke corporation. They believe it's OK to discriminate. Just in reverse. They have a white manager who has openly said she would rather overlook even qualified candidates to hire black people. I have never been quite so disgusted in my entire life and told them so. They could care less. I demanded somebody get back to me about how they have corrected the situation and what actions were taken. I could hear crickets.
Being a person of a mixed family, all of us are disgusted by that. We all want a fair chance. That's all we want. Not a "more fair" chance than the next person. Nobody has to give any of us a break because of our color. That is disgusting on its face.
Sync.com has another thing that I just love. There are two of us and so we bought their business pro account. But are you sitting down? I think we pay $30 a month for the both of us in total. And for that, we have 100% unlimited space. Yes you read that right. So it is a bit slower, but not too bad, completely, 100% private, and now faster. So many improvements have just been made it's just amazing. Sync.com cares, and they listen. Two things the dropbox does not.
I was paying dropbox several hundred dollars a year and that was just for my account. I have now canceled my account and have gone to the free level as have several other people that I'm friends with and two other people in our company. I wonder how much this is really costing them? Yes we're just a few and very little. But it is not just us that is finding better places.
Dropbox marches on to the tune of their own "woke drummer". They have never given an appropriate answer. They have never even attempted to do what it takes to solve this. And we know that if other companies can solve it, they can do. Yes, yes Apple is suggesting that the main drive used. That's convenient for Apple as it causes all of us to buy a bigger drives. However, that is not the answer. Many of us have way too big of stuff that needs to be stored and accessed and the main drive even at 8 TB would not be big enough.
I'm very happy with sync.com. No, they are not paying me to say anything. I'm hoping this is somewhat like salt in the wound. Dropbox screwed me for a long time, refused to respond to my concerns, trade like crazy to keep me from downgrading my account. They can sign you up all right with a click of a button but to get away from them they can't help you. You have to trudge through their menus figure out how to get out and then click the buttons yourself. Ridiculous. They claim it's for privacy reasons. Funny that they don't respect her privacy in any other way.
Really, I just want to make sure this thread keeps going. Let's make sure everyone knows how ridiculous the situation really is. Maybe some Wolk engineer in dropbox will actually read it. I'm sure they won't care, but I wish for them the same future that Twitter employees had.
Next time when I instruct you to respond, I expect you to do so. I was a paying customer and I still would be. You failed me. You failed the common decency test as well. But you failed to follow my instructions and at least give me an update. You failed all of us in your ridiculous privacy policy. And now you show us how little you care by not even giving a real response to our questions and marking it as solved. I really do hope that each and every employee of this silly company get treated the exact same way they are treating others.
- psalcal2 years agoCollaborator | Level 10Dude stop with the “woke”‘political crap. OMG you are just too much. The whole idea of “woke” is so completely out of context and frankly ignorant. Stop making every **bleep** thing political.
Nobody gives a flying crap about your politics. NOBODY CARES.- jmeredi22 years agoHelpful | Level 6Sync.con still claiming 40Mbps max with no plans to upgrade speed. So for users uploading terabytes of data daily, this is almost as bad as Dropbox not allowing for external drives.
- TheMainOne2 years agoCollaborator | Level 9
jmeredi2 yes I think for especially heavy uploaded in downloaders, it is a dealbreaker.
I did get an email from sync.com stating that they are turning up the speed. I'm just reporting what they said. Frankly they did not reference what the speed will be now. So they may have turned it up but only ever so slightly.
In my opinion it is too slow for huge amounts of data. Especially if it has to be done every day or at least very often.
I can live with this just fine. And the price for a business pro deal with them with unlimited storage is still so spectacular for me I'm shaking my head over it. It is extremely effective. But again, I don't have to upload or download terabytes all the time.
- TheMainOne2 years agoCollaborator | Level 9
psalcal LOL, apparently you care. If you don't, stop referring to it.
I care enough to refer to it. Because that's exactly what they did. If you don't like this, tell drop your box to knock it off. That's what I did
Let me get one thing straight, the day of you telling me what to do will never arrive. So if you don't like what I'm saying ignore it. That was your advice to me. Kindly take your own advice.
Woke much?
This was the first major deciding factor for me leaving them. And I have every right to reference that. I would not have thrown anything political in anyone's face had it not been done to me. Their manager threw this in the face of all customers by publishing publicly what she said. I simply responded. I would not tolerate a company doing that to me and said so.
That was strike one. And whether you like it or not, I am not turning something political. They did. They rammed it down my throat and wouldn't even respond about it. I am responding here and will continue to do so as I see fit. I suspect "a word to the wise" should be sufficient, yes? I am detailing the reasons why I am no longer a paying customer for anyone who cares. If you don't, move along. I think a lot of other people do. Maybe even drop your box might care eventually.
Strike two was this nonsense about having to store everything on the primary drive.
That was enough for me. I stopped my membership.
I just got an email from sync.com saying they turned up the speed. Frankly, it's still too slow. And for someone that has terabytes of data, I can understand it's not a good fit. I had 2 TB that I uploaded. And yes it took too long I agree with you. However, the trade-offs are worth it for me and probably for the majority of clients here. For those that are heavy up loaders and downloaders, it may be too slow still.
- psalcal2 years agoCollaborator | Level 10I certainly feel sorry for everyone who has to make everything about politics. Do what you want. Nobody cares. Stop snowflaking.
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