4 ms·

That was 10 years ago. Yes, I also started using it because of that. These days the the more important feature (at least for me) is being able to offload rarely

That was 10 years ago. Yes, I also started using it because of that. These days the the more important feature (at least for me) is being able to offload rarely used files from my drive. SSDs in MacBooks are still crazy expensive.

senko 5y ago
> That was 10 years ago. That's exactly what the article author is saying.
- judge2020 5y ago
  This comment thread is about how the author doesn’t seem to realize that the motive of these services has changed in response to fewer and fewer users wanting a sync solution versus a backup solution.
  - arcbyte 5y ago
    It's definitely not "fewer and fewer users wanting a sync solution" and instead "more and more computer users we can sell something to if we pile features into our overloaded app". There's a criticism in there that I share because I miss when things were more modular, but I also understand and appreciate the value and opportunities that modern tech is bringing to people. The back and forth chaos of progress and foundation-building is important but frustrating.
0x0nyandesu 5y ago
Way to take my thing and ruin it then be like "shut up it's old"
- janto 5y ago
  How can you claim it's your thing? Customers ain't paying for that.
  - black_puppydog 5y ago
    Some were. But your point is valid; a company will move to what _most_ customers want. A FOSS application can keep servicing the (perhaps smaller) original crowd of users.
fabianhjr 5y ago
> being able to offload rarely used files from my drive. > SSDs in MacBooks are still crazy expensive. It sounds like an archival usage rather than syncing or sharing usage.
- josefrichter 5y ago
  Well, above all, it's super convenient. The files stay where they are, you just mark them as "online only" and they don't take up space on your disk. When you click to open such file or folder, it will immediately download back to your disk and you can use it again. You will lose maybe a few seconds once in a blue moon when you need one of them. But you easily gain hundreds of gigabytes of space on your SSD. Just yesterday I right-clicked some folders to mark them "online only" and immediately gained +300GB free space.. Plus of course you can access those files from your phone or ipad too, when needed. Basically I personally have all my work files in Dropbox and don't use additional backup (used Backblaze in the past).
zitterbewegung 5y ago
Why not buy an external drive instead? You could also use it as a backup.
- josefrichter 5y ago
  External drives are a thing of history. Too much hassle, too much inconvenience, can't access anytime and anywhere I want, etc. What's the benefit of external drive compared to Dropbox really?
  - kmtrowbr 5y ago
    Dropbox works well for small files that you need to share with others. However, if you use it to back up large amounts of data ... say >100GB, the experience of using it is very poor. It consumes large amounts of CPU continually. It takes forever to run to completion (literally in some cases, in my case it ran for weeks before I gave up on it). An external hard drive is of comparable cost to Dropbox, and a one-time cost, not something you need to pay for, forever. It runs to completion in 20 minutes. You can keep multiple versions of it in different physical locations. It's conceptually simple with fewer points of failure. Personally I tried using several different cloud backup solutions, but I gave up on them. A few encrypted external hard drives, updated every month or two in a repeatable way (e.g. a bash script), one at home, one at work ... and backup is a solved problem. Of course, to each their own.
    - josefrichter 5y ago
      Then you had some problem. I have ~1TB in Dropbox, files small and large. No problems with sync. Once in a while it does go crazy, eats up a lot of CPU and takes 1 hour to get in proper sync. It’s annoying, but luckily it’s rare. And it goes with me everywhere. How do you access external drive from your phone anyway?
      - kmtrowbr 5y ago
        The point of the external hard drives is really just to have a backup. I don't have a 1TB collection of files that I need to access from multiple places. So I would never try to access my big backup from my phone. I don't do that kind of work from my phone, ever. If you're in that situation, something like Dropbox might help, provided that it doesn't eat all your CPU. Good for you! Glad it's working out.

senko 5y ago

> That was 10 years ago. That's exactly what the article author is saying.

judge2020 5y ago
This comment thread is about how the author doesn’t seem to realize that the motive of these services has changed in response to fewer and fewer users wanting a sync solution versus a backup solution.
- arcbyte 5y ago
  It's definitely not "fewer and fewer users wanting a sync solution" and instead "more and more computer users we can sell something to if we pile features into our overloaded app". There's a criticism in there that I share because I miss when things were more modular, but I also understand and appreciate the value and opportunities that modern tech is bringing to people. The back and forth chaos of progress and foundation-building is important but frustrating.

0x0nyandesu 5y ago

Way to take my thing and ruin it then be like "shut up it's old"

janto 5y ago
How can you claim it's your thing? Customers ain't paying for that.
- black_puppydog 5y ago
  Some were. But your point is valid; a company will move to what _most_ customers want. A FOSS application can keep servicing the (perhaps smaller) original crowd of users.

fabianhjr 5y ago

> being able to offload rarely used files from my drive. > SSDs in MacBooks are still crazy expensive. It sounds like an archival usage rather than syncing or sharing usage.

josefrichter 5y ago
Well, above all, it's super convenient. The files stay where they are, you just mark them as "online only" and they don't take up space on your disk. When you click to open such file or folder, it will immediately download back to your disk and you can use it again. You will lose maybe a few seconds once in a blue moon when you need one of them. But you easily gain hundreds of gigabytes of space on your SSD. Just yesterday I right-clicked some folders to mark them "online only" and immediately gained +300GB free space.. Plus of course you can access those files from your phone or ipad too, when needed. Basically I personally have all my work files in Dropbox and don't use additional backup (used Backblaze in the past).

zitterbewegung 5y ago

Why not buy an external drive instead? You could also use it as a backup.

josefrichter 5y ago
External drives are a thing of history. Too much hassle, too much inconvenience, can't access anytime and anywhere I want, etc. What's the benefit of external drive compared to Dropbox really?
- kmtrowbr 5y ago
  Dropbox works well for small files that you need to share with others. However, if you use it to back up large amounts of data ... say >100GB, the experience of using it is very poor. It consumes large amounts of CPU continually. It takes forever to run to completion (literally in some cases, in my case it ran for weeks before I gave up on it). An external hard drive is of comparable cost to Dropbox, and a one-time cost, not something you need to pay for, forever. It runs to completion in 20 minutes. You can keep multiple versions of it in different physical locations. It's conceptually simple with fewer points of failure. Personally I tried using several different cloud backup solutions, but I gave up on them. A few encrypted external hard drives, updated every month or two in a repeatable way (e.g. a bash script), one at home, one at work ... and backup is a solved problem. Of course, to each their own.
  - josefrichter 5y ago
    Then you had some problem. I have ~1TB in Dropbox, files small and large. No problems with sync. Once in a while it does go crazy, eats up a lot of CPU and takes 1 hour to get in proper sync. It’s annoying, but luckily it’s rare. And it goes with me everywhere. How do you access external drive from your phone anyway?
    - kmtrowbr 5y ago
      The point of the external hard drives is really just to have a backup. I don't have a 1TB collection of files that I need to access from multiple places. So I would never try to access my big backup from my phone. I don't do that kind of work from my phone, ever. If you're in that situation, something like Dropbox might help, provided that it doesn't eat all your CPU. Good for you! Glad it's working out.