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IanG1's avatar
IanG1
Helpful | Level 6
3 years ago

DropBox backup plan, but I want to select multiple drives.

I am interested in buying the backup 2Tb subscription for my desktop which has two hard drives in it. It says to just select the drive you want to back up. Do all the files have to be on one drive and not spread across multiple hard drives?

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  • IanG1's avatar
    IanG1
    2 years ago

    Thanks Nancy, it is becoming clearer. I didn't know if when Dropbox created that folder it had to reserve the space at that point in time. As I have c 1.7Tb of data it would be physically impossible to create a second folder big enough to match that on a 2Tb drive.

    I assume the Dropbox folder provides the logical boundary for the data in it and when I load stuff into it the content of the Dropbox folder increases logically but doesn't increase the overall space required on the hard drive.

    So my order of work seems to be:

    Turn the two logical drives on my main 2Tb hard drive into one by temporarily clearing the logical drive I am going to get rid of and store that on other drives

    Turn the whole hard drive into a single partition

    Load the files already on that drive inc Outlook files into the Dropbox folder

    Add back the other files I want backing up that have been temporarily stored where back into the Dropbox folder. 

    That way Dropbox will be backing up the 1.7Tb currently on on my main drives.

    Does that sound correct?

    Thanks

    Ian

     

    • IanG1's avatar
      IanG1
      Helpful | Level 6
      3 years ago

      Hi Rich,

      Yes, I got that, but most computers only have one hard drive. I have two hard drives within my desktop with different activity on them and I want to know whether Dropbox treats them as one computer or whether all the files within the computer I want to back up have to be on the same physical drive or whether I can add folders from both drives?

      Thanks Ian

      • Rich's avatar
        Rich
        Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
        3 years ago
        IanG1 wrote:

        I have two hard drives within my desktop with different activity on them and I want to know whether Dropbox treats them as one computer or whether all the files within the computer I want to back up have to be on the same physical drive or whether I can add folders from both drives?

        The normal sync process for Dropbox will only sync the items located in the Dropbox folder that gets created upon install. If you want files to sync, you need to put them in the Dropbox folder. You can't sync other locations on your computer.

         

        The backup feature of the Backup plan will only back up one computer plus one external hard drive. It will not back up two drives.

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