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iMac 2021 - Dropbox doesn't detect an external Samsung SSD drive

Vlad Verbni

Hi all,

I have the latest silicon iMac however keep all my files on a recently purchased external Samsung 1T SSD drive due to lack of hard drive space on my new Mac (256GB). So I wanted to sync my external hard drive to Dropbox. I couldn't do it simply because Dropbox doesn't detect the drive. I tried to connect my external drive to USB-C port at the back of my Mac, or via USB-A port using an external USB hub - no result. However when, for experiment sake, I connected my old portable WD Studio drive, Dropbox detected it straight away. All my portable drives are formatted to Mac Os Extended (Journaled) and I wouldn't want to change that.

Can anyone help resolving this issue? Thanks in advance.

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Vlad Verbni

The problem is solved. Essentially what has happened is that at the time when the dropbox app was installed, the external Samsung SSD drive was connected to iMac. So Dropbox the time of installation treated the external drive as a part of iMac hard drive. I removed the Dropbox on my iMac, disconnected the Samsung drive, and reinstalled the latest Dropbox app. The Dropbox instantly started backing up the data sitting on the external drive. Like I said: the problem is solved!

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Jay

Hi @Vlad Verbni, thanks for messaging the Community.

Just for clarification, is the drive file system in the list of supported files on this section?

This will help me to assist further!

Vlad Verbni

Hi Jay,

All my external hard drives that I use with my iMac: Western Digital 1TB (used for Time Machine Back-up) and Samsung 1TB SSD (used for all my documents) are formatted to Mac OS Extended (Journaled) – the most suitable format for Mac. It's not on supported list of disk formats. However, my WD 1TB external drive is detected by Dropbox. I tested a few of my older WD drives, and yes, all of them show up in Dropbox. This tells me that in fact, Dropbox does support Mac OS Extended (Journaled) format even though it is not listed. My problem is: Dropbox doesn't detect the newest Samsung 1TB SSD that I keep all my document on, the one I would like to sync. From other discussion threads I understood that Dropbox can sync external Solid State Drives, then why it doesn't sync mine?

Also I hate an idea of using traditional WD drive, or reformatting my Samsung drive to, say, FAT32. This is because all previous generation DISK drives are not as reliable, and also are not as fast to work from as SSD ones.

Do you know if Dropbox was ever tested to sync with external solid state drives? Maybe that’s where the problem is.

Jay

Have you tried manually adding the drive to the backups list from the Dropbox site directly by clicking Manage Backups?

Vlad Verbni

Yes Jay. Of course I tried that. Since Dropbox doesn't detect the Samsung SSD drive (connected to my iMac via built-in USB-C port), the only folders I can see after clicking on "manage backups" button is the ones sitting on my iMac hard drive. The option to choose the backup is only given when Dropbox is reading an external drive. In my case, it doesn't detect it.

Jay

Thanks for the info, in order to look into this matter in more detail, would it be possible to reach out to the email associated with your forum profile?

Vlad Verbni

Hi Jay. Brett form Dropbox support has closed my ticket replying: “As you mentioned before, your external hard drive's format is "Mac OS Extended (Journaled)". As mentioned before, the only formats that are detectable by the Dropbox Desktop application regarding Mac OS, are the HFS+, APFS, exFAT, FAT32.”

As you probably understand, Mac OS Extended (Journaled) and HFS+ (supported by Dropbox) is very same format type. This means that Dropbox doesn't detect my external drive when it should. So my ticket was closed without any further investigation. Very disappointing.

Megan

Hi @Vlad Verbni, have you tried responding back to the agent? That should re-open the ticket, so you can troubleshoot further.

Vlad Verbni

Thank you Megan for your suggestion, yes i did contact the agent. The ticket was reopened. I provided some screen shots to the agent to investigate further. Trying to resolve this issue, I also reformatted my Samsung T7 portable 1TB SSD drive to APFS – the format definitely supported by Dropbox. Again, no detection of the drive by Dropbox whatsoever.

I found this discussion thread on internet, not sure if it has something to do with my issue https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Monitors-and-Memory/T7-Touch-not-recognised/td-p/1379507. Don't really want to mess up with my iMac so don't want to follow any of it. I'll wait for the agent to get back to me.

Vlad Verbni