4 ms·

Yep, after setting to strict limits on their free plans, I abandoned them, and built my own, local "dropbox" (syncthing), and haven't looked back since.

nicoburns 5y ago
I tried using syncthing as I liked the idea of not relying on a cloud provider, but it seemed to be really slow. So slow that I gave up and setup Google Drive. (even over a local network syncing a 2gb file was going to take hours even though I could download that file from the internet in a couple of minutes - is special configuration required to make it use the local network?)
- miloignis 5y ago
  There shouldn't be, somethings going wrong for you. I use syncthing to sync gigabytes of music from my computer to my phone and it takes a couple of minutes over wifi. Syncthing will automatically exchange all known addresses that your device can be found at between your paired devices, and it will then normally use the local network. Not sure whats going wrong for you :/
  - davidjytang 5y ago
    The Syncthing developers themselves are using Syncthing to sync dozens of megabytes of data. I saw in one of their forum comments. I tried to setup a drive with roughly 2TB of data. It was extremely slow to get synchronized between my mac and linux. Both in same LAN. Syncthing seems to be a lot of checksums.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  I have all the computers connected via (my own) VPN servers, and the only limit for me was my connection speed (which on cable was 1gbit, on some random wifi, slower). The nodes are set by default to have local discovery, but you need port 22000(?) open for synchronization to work (if you have firewall enabled)
eli 5y ago
The percentage of customers who have the ability and desire to set up their own sync solution is so small for Dropbox that they are right not to worry about it.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  Globally, counting "normal people"... sure. People discussing this here in these threads.... i think atleast 80% of them have both ability and means to do so. .
  - wonderbore 5y ago
    I have the ability and means and still wouldn’t do it. Even $120/year is nothing compared to the time I’d lose setting up and maintaining the system. It just doesn’t make monetary sense.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
sho 5y ago
Interesting. We both evidently did the same calculation when Dropbox started enforcing its limits, but ended up with different answers. For me, the time, hassle and money to run my own instance of syncthing or whatever exceeded the hundred bucks or so a year Dropbox wanted to do it for me. Wonder where our weightings differed.
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  I didn't want my data in the cloud, I wanted more space, less limitations and more flexibility in sharing (eg. share this folder with PC1, this folder with PC2, etc). ...but I had dropbox, it worked, and i was too lazy to move. The limitations from dropbox were a push for me, because limiting usage to three devices basically broke dropbox for me, and forced me to move to syncthing.
- Kwpolska 5y ago
  Me three. When Dropbox hit me with the three-device limit, I decided to just move my stuff to OneDrive. Granted, my OneDrive account has 40 GB free space (through various grandfathered deals), but if it didn’t, I’d probably prefer to pay Microsoft (or Google) $19.99/year for 100 GB rather than paying Dropbox $120 for 2000 GB (the majority of which would go unused).

nicoburns 5y ago

I tried using syncthing as I liked the idea of not relying on a cloud provider, but it seemed to be really slow. So slow that I gave up and setup Google Drive. (even over a local network syncing a 2gb file was going to take hours even though I could download that file from the internet in a couple of minutes - is special configuration required to make it use the local network?)

miloignis 5y ago
There shouldn't be, somethings going wrong for you. I use syncthing to sync gigabytes of music from my computer to my phone and it takes a couple of minutes over wifi. Syncthing will automatically exchange all known addresses that your device can be found at between your paired devices, and it will then normally use the local network. Not sure whats going wrong for you :/
- davidjytang 5y ago
  The Syncthing developers themselves are using Syncthing to sync dozens of megabytes of data. I saw in one of their forum comments. I tried to setup a drive with roughly 2TB of data. It was extremely slow to get synchronized between my mac and linux. Both in same LAN. Syncthing seems to be a lot of checksums.
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
I have all the computers connected via (my own) VPN servers, and the only limit for me was my connection speed (which on cable was 1gbit, on some random wifi, slower). The nodes are set by default to have local discovery, but you need port 22000(?) open for synchronization to work (if you have firewall enabled)

eli 5y ago

The percentage of customers who have the ability and desire to set up their own sync solution is so small for Dropbox that they are right not to worry about it.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
Globally, counting "normal people"... sure. People discussing this here in these threads.... i think atleast 80% of them have both ability and means to do so. .
- wonderbore 5y ago
  I have the ability and means and still wouldn’t do it. Even $120/year is nothing compared to the time I’d lose setting up and maintaining the system. It just doesn’t make monetary sense.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

sho 5y ago

Interesting. We both evidently did the same calculation when Dropbox started enforcing its limits, but ended up with different answers. For me, the time, hassle and money to run my own instance of syncthing or whatever exceeded the hundred bucks or so a year Dropbox wanted to do it for me. Wonder where our weightings differed.

ajsnigrutin 5y ago
I didn't want my data in the cloud, I wanted more space, less limitations and more flexibility in sharing (eg. share this folder with PC1, this folder with PC2, etc). ...but I had dropbox, it worked, and i was too lazy to move. The limitations from dropbox were a push for me, because limiting usage to three devices basically broke dropbox for me, and forced me to move to syncthing.
Kwpolska 5y ago
Me three. When Dropbox hit me with the three-device limit, I decided to just move my stuff to OneDrive. Granted, my OneDrive account has 40 GB free space (through various grandfathered deals), but if it didn’t, I’d probably prefer to pay Microsoft (or Google) $19.99/year for 100 GB rather than paying Dropbox $120 for 2000 GB (the majority of which would go unused).