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External Hard Drive compatibility with Dropbox Backup

I am interested in upgrading my plan to the 2TB plan because I need to backup an external hard drive (WD-My Book for Mac) with approximately 600GB of old iPhoto files on it. I cannot upgrade until I know that Dropbox Backup can access and backup this drive. When I go to the Dropbox Backup section of the app, it only gives my Mac hard drive as an option even though the external hard drive is connected and viewable/accessible in Finder. The FAQ section of Dropbox support says that it supports only certain types of external hard drives but I don't know what those drive types mean nor can I tell whether my external drive is one of those types. I contacted Dropbox sales support and they can answer my question and they can't get me any tech support (makes me question whether I want to stick with Dropbox anyway but that's another issue altogether). If I can't backup this drive through Dropbox Backup then I am not going to upgrade. My free plan is enough for what I need otherwise.

Can anyone help me figure out whether Dropbox Backup can back up my external drive and help me see it on the Dropbox Backup screen in the app?

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Walter

Hi there @jpeduto - thanks for using Dropbox and welcome to our Community!

Storing or backing up your iPhoto files/libraries in Dropbox isn't really recommended. You can have a look at this discussion for some additional information, if you like.

Also note that you can back up the following types of external hard drives to Dropbox Backup on Mac: HFS+, APFS, exFAT, FAT32 while encrypted APFS drives aren't supported.

I hope this clarifies matters and please let me know if you have any other questions.

jpeduto

Thank you for the reply, Walter. The person in the link you provided is trying to do something different than what I’m trying to do.

I have two large old iphoto libraries that contain old photos stored on an external hard drive. Neither of these libraries is the one that I currently use and that is synced to iCloud with my phone and other devices, nor do I need them to be. I am looking for a service that will back up the file in a cloud server just in case something happens to the external hard drive. I am not looking to sync those libraries with iCloud.

In regards to the hard drive types, I already knew that dropbox only works with those types of hard drives. The problem I have is, I have no idea what those types are and I have no idea how to check whether my extra hard drive is one of those types.

Walter

Even though this is not my expertise, I found this article which can help with identifying the format of your external drive @jpeduto

Feel free to take a look and let us know what you find!

jpeduto

Thanks Walter. That article didn't help but I did find this link on eBay for the exact model hard drive that I am using. (https://www.ebay.com/itm/233965044510?hash=item367967431e:g:dDQAAOSwBqhh5qQ~&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA0IPQyGJ7tMxMdHcmA1s5J6IHQKFGiUUup9ClKC1vPbqvlL3qO6t3a9nVFOxgBMPeEKdb4y1va3d5j7hKzAKmYPSre9GzaQOHpfZOBCSB4VeL9MrkrbL5osbULusV0BLjt4XzmX6g%2FvqbbyewvNPNsj3BvXgldKxvzJUq%2FfesliRYWPrac6lasHboCghvfKeHlE0nr9VcrShzAs1ckcWSHjjKa%2BwdiwAsYvrASR55riT83dJDjp8nCsv%2Bks4e8NdPIiMAtWsruDxueGM1WwFuWVY%3D%7Ctkp%3ABlBMUI7Jt9ahYw).

This article seems to show that this drive is "Pre-formatted in HFS+ Journaled for Mac" which is one of the formats that Dropbox says that it supports.

Now, with that being the case, can anyone tell me why when I go into the Dropbox App and go to the Dropbox Backup that it does not show the device even though it is powered on and connected to my laptop? I can see the drive in Finder but not in the Dropbox Backup part of the app.

Jay

Hi @jpeduto, if the drive isn't located in the Dropbox Backup feature, then it means it wouldn't be supported for the backup process.

dangoodall

Walter, Dropbox, encrypted APFS is the recommended standard for external Mac file systems and this is a huge oversight that you appear to be in denial about.

You shouldn't really be advertising external drive backup as a gold feature - it's a beta feature if that.

kendall0501

@dangoodall,
I don't know if you found your solution, but I'm finding DB is kinda like the myth of big Pharma in that they don't want to offer an easy cure (solution), only a way to keep you on the medication (subscription). Easily allowing the back up of DB files to external drives ends DB business model.

RoboDrop

Ran into this issue the other day. Ended up having to use Google Drive to do the back up, which works seamlessly with an encrypted 4tb external Sandisk G-Drive. Don't understand why it can't be implemented specially if google have accomplished it. Would prefer to use one cloud provider for everything so might have to reconsider moving back to Google Drive. C'mon dropbox simple features to sort. 😉