4 ms·

That sounds good value for money. But the Dropbox syncing experience is unparalleled for me. For that alone, 10$ is worth it.

by nafizh 7y ago

PascLeRasc 7y ago
Not to mention a native Linux client, that's huge for me.
- Arbalest 7y ago
  As long as you only use Ext4
Benjamin_Dobell 7y ago
A few years ago I would have agreed. However, when Dropbox started telling me which file systems I could use (not even consistent across OS), then Dropbox just became another dumb syncing service. The main killer of course being that they dropped support for exFAT, so there's zero way to use Dropbox on a drive shared between OS. That sounds a bit niche, but it basically means Dropbox can't be used on external storage. Don't get me wrong, exFAT is dated. However, the supported file systems vary between OS, so you can't even use Tuxera (or FUSE) NTFS on Mac. There's a lot of complaints about this on the Dropbox forums; so they know, they just don't care. So that's a black mark both technically and for customer support.
- awill 7y ago
  I quit dropbox when they dropped support for xfs on linux. I've been pretty happy with Google Drive with insync Linux client.
- pfranz 7y ago
  I've worked on a cross-platform product that deal with files on disk. I completely understand why they limit to certain filesystems and why that list is different per OS. I briefly tested out a setup where we tried to share an external drive between Linux and Windows...I think it was formatted ext3. We needed symlinks to work and that was a no-go in Windows on anything but NTFS and the inverse wouldn't work with Linux. I've also had to deal with subtle user/permission differences when moving drives between computers depending on the partition. It seems like a situation where 95% of your users are covered by supporting a few partition types and a significant amount of time would be spent trying to do anythings more. It is unfortunate they dropped exFAT support.
  - michaelmrose 7y ago
    The hard case of syncing files between OS is one they are already handling what they deliberately stopped handling was any other filesystem on Linux other than ext4. This actually doesn't make much sense as logically they ought to be depending on an abstract interface to the filesystem not a particular filesystem unless the filesystem in question actually lacks features required to make the software work. This is actually so because it actually did work for years across a wide variety of filesystems. I was syncing files between one machine with ext4, one with zfs, and my android device without difficulty. This is perceptibly to the user like websites that used to check to see if you were running internet explorer and auto fail if you were running firefox. It actually works if you fake the user agent. Humorously you actually can work around the problem in the same fashion. https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/11/how-to-use-dropbox-on-non-ext4.html https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/11/how-to-use-dropbox-on-... However its easier and safer just to drop dropbox.
    - josteink 7y ago
      Yeah. All this noise about explicitly disabling itself on ZFS made me kind of disenfranchised with Dropbox. It’s no longer the universal solution it used to be. That was it’s one selling point its competitors didn’t have. Good job ruining it! If my next phone is an Android, I’ll probably move everything to syncthing and call it a day.
  - Dylan16807 7y ago
    But dropbox ignores permissions and I'm pretty sure it doesn't use symlinks. And it fails to work on filesystems with more features then necessary.
    - pfranz 7y ago
      It can't completely ignore filesystem permissions even if you're not tracking them. It's obvious Dropbox isn't the right fit for a lot of people's needs here anymore--and I agree that sucks. I can't speak to Dropbox since I don't use it for much, but even if a filesystem has those features it's not always a good idea because of a support, q/a, performance reasons, or future features. I was just trying to give my own abridged version of "mistakes programmers make about X"
- Jerry2 7y ago
  I was a Dropbox subscriber for over 6 years. However, I stopped paying once they stopped supporting Btrfs and XFS... the two FS I use on most of my machines. I still have a basic account on a Mac and iOS but I don't use it much and I have moved my most important data somewhere else. I know there are hacks to make it work with other FS but I can't trust hacks with my data.
jorvi 7y ago
The syncing is unparalleled because Dropbox does block-level/delta syncing (per 4KB I think?) instead of file-level syncing. This becomes very readily apparent if you store large variable files on Dropbox vs. another cloud storage service. Change a few KB? Dropbox syncs it in a few seconds, whereas most (nearly all) other services will happily re-upload your entire multi-gigabyte file again and again and again on each edit.
- tpowell 7y ago
  I often make small changes to large files, so this matters to me. Does iCloud or anyone else handle changes this way, or just Dropbox? I’ve used Dropbox forever, but it feels like more of a commodity these days, and I’m finally paying for iCloud storage.
- pkaye 7y ago
  How does it handle it when you add something to the middle of a file and every block afterwards has shifted data?
  - MayeulC 7y ago
    I guess they probably use a rolling hash, that would be the smart thing to do. I think I first heard of them with casync. The gist of it is that you hash file contents in a sliding window, and use a condition on the resulting hash to chunck your file. That way, blocks are determined by the file content, not an arbitrary offset, and this allows to propagate deltas even with insertions or removals.
  - chipsa 7y ago
    If it's getting file change notifications, it can look at which blocks had changes written, and only do those. This doesn't help if every block has changes, but most programs that work on big files will have ways to minimize the number of blocks touched, simply to make it faster to save the file.
goerz 7y ago
Not being able to sync arbitrary folders is a huge caveat, though. To some extent, I can use symlinks to alleviate that, but it always feels very brittle

That sounds good value for money. But the Dropbox syncing experience is unparalleled for me. For that alone, 10$ is worth it.

by nafizh 7y ago

That sounds good value for money. But the Dropbox syncing experience is unparalleled for me. For that alone, 10$ is worth it.

PascLeRasc 7y ago

Not to mention a native Linux client, that's huge for me.

Arbalest 7y ago
As long as you only use Ext4

Benjamin_Dobell 7y ago

A few years ago I would have agreed. However, when Dropbox started telling me which file systems I could use (not even consistent across OS), then Dropbox just became another dumb syncing service. The main killer of course being that they dropped support for exFAT, so there's zero way to use Dropbox on a drive shared between OS. That sounds a bit niche, but it basically means Dropbox can't be used on external storage. Don't get me wrong, exFAT is dated. However, the supported file systems vary between OS, so you can't even use Tuxera (or FUSE) NTFS on Mac. There's a lot of complaints about this on the Dropbox forums; so they know, they just don't care. So that's a black mark both technically and for customer support.

awill 7y ago
I quit dropbox when they dropped support for xfs on linux. I've been pretty happy with Google Drive with insync Linux client.
pfranz 7y ago
I've worked on a cross-platform product that deal with files on disk. I completely understand why they limit to certain filesystems and why that list is different per OS. I briefly tested out a setup where we tried to share an external drive between Linux and Windows...I think it was formatted ext3. We needed symlinks to work and that was a no-go in Windows on anything but NTFS and the inverse wouldn't work with Linux. I've also had to deal with subtle user/permission differences when moving drives between computers depending on the partition. It seems like a situation where 95% of your users are covered by supporting a few partition types and a significant amount of time would be spent trying to do anythings more. It is unfortunate they dropped exFAT support.
- michaelmrose 7y ago
  The hard case of syncing files between OS is one they are already handling what they deliberately stopped handling was any other filesystem on Linux other than ext4. This actually doesn't make much sense as logically they ought to be depending on an abstract interface to the filesystem not a particular filesystem unless the filesystem in question actually lacks features required to make the software work. This is actually so because it actually did work for years across a wide variety of filesystems. I was syncing files between one machine with ext4, one with zfs, and my android device without difficulty. This is perceptibly to the user like websites that used to check to see if you were running internet explorer and auto fail if you were running firefox. It actually works if you fake the user agent. Humorously you actually can work around the problem in the same fashion. https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/11/how-to-use-dropbox-on-non-ext4.html https://www.linuxuprising.com/2018/11/how-to-use-dropbox-on-... However its easier and safer just to drop dropbox.
  - josteink 7y ago
    Yeah. All this noise about explicitly disabling itself on ZFS made me kind of disenfranchised with Dropbox. It’s no longer the universal solution it used to be. That was it’s one selling point its competitors didn’t have. Good job ruining it! If my next phone is an Android, I’ll probably move everything to syncthing and call it a day.
- Dylan16807 7y ago
  But dropbox ignores permissions and I'm pretty sure it doesn't use symlinks. And it fails to work on filesystems with more features then necessary.
  - pfranz 7y ago
    It can't completely ignore filesystem permissions even if you're not tracking them. It's obvious Dropbox isn't the right fit for a lot of people's needs here anymore--and I agree that sucks. I can't speak to Dropbox since I don't use it for much, but even if a filesystem has those features it's not always a good idea because of a support, q/a, performance reasons, or future features. I was just trying to give my own abridged version of "mistakes programmers make about X"
Jerry2 7y ago
I was a Dropbox subscriber for over 6 years. However, I stopped paying once they stopped supporting Btrfs and XFS... the two FS I use on most of my machines. I still have a basic account on a Mac and iOS but I don't use it much and I have moved my most important data somewhere else. I know there are hacks to make it work with other FS but I can't trust hacks with my data.

jorvi 7y ago

The syncing is unparalleled because Dropbox does block-level/delta syncing (per 4KB I think?) instead of file-level syncing. This becomes very readily apparent if you store large variable files on Dropbox vs. another cloud storage service. Change a few KB? Dropbox syncs it in a few seconds, whereas most (nearly all) other services will happily re-upload your entire multi-gigabyte file again and again and again on each edit.

tpowell 7y ago
I often make small changes to large files, so this matters to me. Does iCloud or anyone else handle changes this way, or just Dropbox? I’ve used Dropbox forever, but it feels like more of a commodity these days, and I’m finally paying for iCloud storage.
pkaye 7y ago
How does it handle it when you add something to the middle of a file and every block afterwards has shifted data?
- MayeulC 7y ago
  I guess they probably use a rolling hash, that would be the smart thing to do. I think I first heard of them with casync. The gist of it is that you hash file contents in a sliding window, and use a condition on the resulting hash to chunck your file. That way, blocks are determined by the file content, not an arbitrary offset, and this allows to propagate deltas even with insertions or removals.
- chipsa 7y ago
  If it's getting file change notifications, it can look at which blocks had changes written, and only do those. This doesn't help if every block has changes, but most programs that work on big files will have ways to minimize the number of blocks touched, simply to make it faster to save the file.

goerz 7y ago

Not being able to sync arbitrary folders is a huge caveat, though. To some extent, I can use symlinks to alleviate that, but it always feels very brittle