5/20/2023 0 Comments Dropbox for mac miniBut there’s also a folder called Transporter Library. If you move files in there, they’re synced to the remote Transporter drive and also remain resident on your system. They didn’t ask me to write about them and don’t know I’m using them as an example.)Īnyway, when you use Transporter, you have two folders: the Transporter folder behaves just like the Dropbox folder. (Disclosures: I’ve been using an evaluation Transporter sent to me by the company the people behind Transporter also make Drobo, which is an Incomparable sponsor. If you don’t know, File Transporter is a sort of “personal Dropbox” device, a networked hard drive that syncs with your devices and others. What I’d like to see Dropbox do is approach this the same way the folks who make File Transporter did. Selective Sync wasn’t meant to be used in that way… but for that matter, neither was Dropbox. (Or upload files via Dropbox’s web interface, to a folder that’s been unchecked on all your devices via Selective Sync.) What if I want to use my Dropbox space to offload some less vital files, to be accessible via Dropbox but not taking up space on any of my local devices? Right now the only way to do that would be to put something in the box, then turn off Selective Sync everywhere for that folder. ![]() That’s good, because it means that if I drop a gigantic file on my Mac mini, it doesn’t necessarily have to be synced to my MacBook Air. Dropbox is now too big for the storage in my wife’s and my laptops put together.Ī while back, Dropbox introduced a feature called Selective Sync that allows computers to opt out of syncing certain folders. If it wouldn’t make everything explode, I could put my entire hard drive’s contents in Dropbox and leave half my allotted Dropbox free and clear. But did you know that there’s only one Mac whose default configuration features more than one terabyte of storage? (For the record, it’s the Mac mini server, which features two 1TB drives.) I’ve got a MacBook Air that’s got maxed-out storage, but even my drive only holds about half a terabyte. So, that terabyte of cloud storage is great. But at its core, Dropbox has always been a tool that made a small part of your filesystem- ~/Dropbox unless you were really stubborn or foolish-into something more. Over the years you’ve been able to share specific folders with other Dropbox users, offer downloads of files to people who don’t use the service, and the like. ![]() And all the while, the files are still on your drive, not hosted over a slow Internet connection. ![]() The original concept of Dropbox-and it’s right there in the name-is that there’s a spot on your computer where you can drop files, and it’ll automatically sync with other devices that are connected to the same Dropbox account. There’s just one problem with having a terabyte of storage on Dropbox: It wrecks the service’s root metaphor. ![]() Now it’s competitive with other cloud drive services on price and storage, while still being the Dropbox that I’ve used and loved for half a decade. I paid because I got tired of bumping up against the space limitations of the company’s free plan, even though it always seemed that Dropbox didn’t provide nearly enough storage for what it charged.īut on August 27, Dropbox announced a new version of Dropbox Pro (its paid tier) that added a bunch of new features and increased the storage on its $10/month paid account tier from 100 GB to 1000 GB. I’ve been a Dropbox user for five years now, and a paying customer for most of that time. Note: This story has not been updated for several years.
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