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I just upgraded my Dropbox account to 50Gb, and for me, it covers a lot of needs. I keep all my important files in there (my mp3 collection, projects, document

by edanm 16y ago

I just upgraded my Dropbox account to 50Gb, and for me, it covers a lot of needs. I keep all my important files in there (my mp3 collection, projects, documents, etc.). I have Dropbox set up on 3 machines (main machine, family computer and my laptop), so I get automatic syncing of all these files, plus backups of all the files on 3 computers, plus access to all these files in the cloud. As far as I'm concerned, it's a revolution in how I work. Dropbox is now my guardian angel, silently backing up everything I do. The only problem with this arrangement is that 50gb is too small for all my files (videos, mostly), and even their 100gb offering is too small for that. I expect this to change in the near future.

brianobush 16y ago
I would love to do this, however, the cost is hard to justify. Though, your post makes me think twice about it. The backup of all my "stuff" would be a welcomed safety net and maybe enough to justify the cost. Thx!
danohuiginn 16y ago
yes. the problem with all online storage services is keeping multiple copies of the data to protect against disk failure. I wish there were a dirt-cheap service which said "we'll shove your files on a drive and keep it online. You'll lose data when the hardware fails; that's your problem". For most of my audio/video files, it'd only be a minor inconvenience to have the online version explode through hardware problems. As it is, I end up paying for reliability that I don't need.
sprout 16y ago
What I would really like is some metadata baked into the filesystem layer that allows you to specify backup levels, which vary how often, whether or not, and where things are backed up. So something like: 1 - always back up to primary backup locations in full. 2 - back up to primary backup locations if it's not too much trouble (some sort of configurable threshold for space) 3 - like 2, but a lower threshold 4 - only back up to secondary backup 5 - do not back up. I know that there's a lot of configuration that would have to go into this, but I think as data becomes a bigger part of our lives, we need to have a more intentional attitude towards how we store our data, and not just 'let the computer back it up.' Until movies are as easy to store as text is currently, there will always be tradeoffs that we will want to think about.
- edanm 16y ago
  The beauty of Dropbox is the "it just works" feeling. You put things in a folder, it's synced to all other computers, plus the web. It really is simple in the best sense of the word. Having said that, the latest beta does allow you to choose to only sync some of the folders. So you can, for example, install Dropbox on your work computer, and choose not to sync your mp3s to it, etc. This should solve a lot of the use cases you have. The only thing really missing, for me, is the ability to exclude specific files/folders from the Dropbox folder (like, for example, per-computer configuration files). I assume they'll allow that at some point, but for now I have to work my way around it. Still worth it though!
  - sprout 16y ago
    If I tried to sync everything over my home DSL connection, software would have limited ability to make it seamless.

by edanm 16y ago

brianobush 16y ago

I would love to do this, however, the cost is hard to justify. Though, your post makes me think twice about it. The backup of all my "stuff" would be a welcomed safety net and maybe enough to justify the cost. Thx!

danohuiginn 16y ago

yes. the problem with all online storage services is keeping multiple copies of the data to protect against disk failure. I wish there were a dirt-cheap service which said "we'll shove your files on a drive and keep it online. You'll lose data when the hardware fails; that's your problem". For most of my audio/video files, it'd only be a minor inconvenience to have the online version explode through hardware problems. As it is, I end up paying for reliability that I don't need.

sprout 16y ago

What I would really like is some metadata baked into the filesystem layer that allows you to specify backup levels, which vary how often, whether or not, and where things are backed up. So something like: 1 - always back up to primary backup locations in full. 2 - back up to primary backup locations if it's not too much trouble (some sort of configurable threshold for space) 3 - like 2, but a lower threshold 4 - only back up to secondary backup 5 - do not back up. I know that there's a lot of configuration that would have to go into this, but I think as data becomes a bigger part of our lives, we need to have a more intentional attitude towards how we store our data, and not just 'let the computer back it up.' Until movies are as easy to store as text is currently, there will always be tradeoffs that we will want to think about.

edanm 16y ago
The beauty of Dropbox is the "it just works" feeling. You put things in a folder, it's synced to all other computers, plus the web. It really is simple in the best sense of the word. Having said that, the latest beta does allow you to choose to only sync some of the folders. So you can, for example, install Dropbox on your work computer, and choose not to sync your mp3s to it, etc. This should solve a lot of the use cases you have. The only thing really missing, for me, is the ability to exclude specific files/folders from the Dropbox folder (like, for example, per-computer configuration files). I assume they'll allow that at some point, but for now I have to work my way around it. Still worth it though!
- sprout 16y ago
  If I tried to sync everything over my home DSL connection, software would have limited ability to make it seamless.