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Dropbox backup in External Drive - Mac

Luix

Hi.

I have a 4Tb DropBox account and I would like to backup this data. I do not sync to my computer (256Gb only) but want to know if it is a good idea to:
1. Buy a 4Tb external drive
2. Install sync app and sync everything.
3. Repeat the sync like one a month (do not need to be everyday/week).

It is not the idea to keep the sync working forever. Just during the “bkp sessions”. Sure, I understand that the first time will take a lot of time...

Do you see any problem? I tried to sync to external drives before but didnt work. I think I need to format NTFS or something.

Make sense?

Thanks,
Luiz

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Walter

Thanks for the additional info and clarifications Luis - most appreciated!

I understand you'd like to use Dropbox mostly as a back up of your files in your external drive and that's OK - just note that this will be a static copy of your files at the moment you sync. If you choose to run Dropbox sporadically as you described though, you'll need to sync from time to time as you mentioned, for your back-up copies to be up to date.

As mentioned, you should always make sure that the external drive is connected when you start-up the desktop app or else, file loss could occur.

My colleague Jay has provided an extensive guide on this on the thread below:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Space/Using-Dropbox-as-an-online-backup-only/m-p/255759#M13%2Fjump-to%2Ffirst-unread-message

I hope this helps to some extent Luis and please keep me posted on your progress!

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Walter

Hey there @Luix - how are you today?

I'm not sure what you'd like to eventually accomplish -merely because Dropbox is mainly a syncing tool, not a back-up one- could you elaborate on your use case?

Also note that our desktop application deed be used with an external hard drive for as long as you can ensure the drive is always connected to your computer while Dropbox is running. If the drive is ever disconnected from the computer while Dropbox is running there is a small chance that the Dropbox software will start deleting files before realizing that the entire drive has been removed.

Additionally, you should ensure that the file system of the external drive meets the file system requirements. Those can be found in the following Help Center article:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/system-requirements

To move your Dropbox folder to an external drive if needed you can use the steps in the following Help Center article:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/desktop-web/move-dropbox-folder

[The location you select is the folder the Dropbox folder will be moved to, rather than the folder your Dropbox files will be stored in.]

I hope this information helps to some extent Luis.

Luix

Dear Walter,

Thanks for your answer. Let me explain:

I use DropBox to share files with some people in our offices around the world. Sometimes, very big files for video projects.
Some production houses share files in DropBox with me, and I copy to my account to keep them together.
It works fine, and I can share the files without any problem.
I really trust in Dropbox and I don't think anything can go wrong, but maybe will be good to have a local backup of these files.
So what I want is to copy my DropBox content to somewhere. I just have the content in DropBox, not in any computer. I think now you see my problem.
Because of the size of some files (some with more than 10Gb), instead of downloading, I'll need to Sync.
Because I do not have space, I'll need an external drive.
But it will be not syncing every time, it's just to make a copy of everything.

What do you think?

Thanks,

Luiz

Walter

Thanks for the additional info and clarifications Luis - most appreciated!

As mentioned, you should always make sure that the external drive is connected when you start-up the desktop app or else, file loss could occur.

My colleague Jay has provided an extensive guide on this on the thread below:

https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Space/Using-Dropbox-as-an-online-backup-only/m-p/255759#M13%2Fjump-to%2Ffirst-unread-message

I hope this helps to some extent Luis and please keep me posted on your progress!

Luix

Dear Walter,

Perfect! Thanks! I just read Jay's link, it's very complete.

Thanks again.

Luiz