Dropbox
Dropbox Use-Cases & Speed Test
There are three ways you can use Dropbox –
- Via a Browser
- Via a local synchronized directory using Dropbox app on a "normal" operating system (Mac OS / Windows)
- Via a plugin within a NAS operating system (like "Cloud Sync" on a Synology NAS).
Dropbox excels at local synchronization.
Dropbox App Speed Test
55GB on 1GB line.
Should take <20 mins if line isn’t congested.
13 minutes so the upload speed was ~72 MB/s. ✅
It’s basically a wash for upload/download of files Google Drive vs Dropbox, especially given congestion variability.
Dropbox on NAS
(Like a Synology) Works great, just don’t put active project files on there.
Dropbox on an External Drive
OWC did an amazing write up of how to use an external hard drive as a Dropbox. It is here. I’ve done this on/off for years. Big warning: if the drive gets disconnected while dropbox is running, Dropbox will think you deleted your entire Dropbox. Thankfully, DB keeps a log of events and you can undo that event and then resync your drive. Once you realize this, you will be relieved, but it will take a lot of time. Since this has happened to me I recommend: setting it up to online only for everything, but sync your whole dropbox, then sync folders and files as you need them, and do the things that are less of a priority over the weekend.
Dropbox Troubleshooting & Tips
Re-Syncing a Drive
For moving an external hard drive Dropbox to a new computer without (re)downloading.
Dropbox has a guide for this here. But I've had to do this so many times that I've re-written it to be a bit more digestible.
Basically, on the new computer or in the new location that you want DropBox (DB) to put the newDB folder:
- Start a DropBox Sync from scratch to the new location, so that DB actually starts downloading all the online files to the new location.
- Pause the Sync, to stop the downloads.
- Copy your existing DB files into the new location (overwrite anything that was just downloaded).
- Resume Syncing - DB will first check the DB folder, be astounded to find all the files magically there, and proceed to only sync the latest updates, if any.
To clarify how to start a DB sync from scratch in a new location (for example, in the event of already having all the files on a hard drive but in a different location, like myself & the OP), I had to actually:
- Unlink my DropBox (Prefs>Account>Unlink).
- Re-Link it and point to the new desired location.
- Pause the Sync
- Move all the DB files from the old location onto the new location, overwriting anything already there.
- Resume Syncing
- In my case this worked perfectly, and DB was "up to date" after a short while.
Dropbox Not Showing Sync Icons / Mac
- Make sure Dropbox is allowed in Security + Privacy → Finder and → Accessibility
- Quit Creative Cloud, Google Drive, Sync, OneDrive
- Quit DropBox and relaunch it
Dropbox “MooV” Error
This is an error when After Effects or Premiere tries to load a file from a cloud service and the file exists in the directory, but it isn’t downloaded (eg “0 Bytes”).
- Make sure the file is downloaded and “offline”
- Make sure sync icons are good
- Make sure there isn’t some bugged cache thing happening, duplicate the file to the desktop and import from there. If it works, your file is bugged - dupe it and rename it in the directory you want it to be in. So annoying.