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I know we pooh-pooh Dropbox as they try and find some more expansive business model than backups, but having been a customer for more than a decade, I haven’t h
by thom 4y ago
I know we pooh-pooh Dropbox as they try and find some more expansive business model than backups, but having been a customer for more than a decade, I haven’t had a single moment’s anxiety about losing any version of any file. It’s never failed when I needed to go back and retrieve something, to the point that my OS’s trash folder is just that thing I empty if I ever want to save some disk space.
- simonblack 4y agoDropbox is only useful if you are using it for just one computer. I tried using it for syncing the files on several computers at one time. Instead of adding files to the computer that was lacking them so that both computers matched, it deleted files from the computer that had them so that both computers matched. These days I just use 'rsync' instead.
- dmd 4y agoI’ve been using dropbox across three computers since a few months after they were founded and have never once encountered this problem - and if I someday do, it’s a matter of seconds to undo deletions in Dropbox.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- themodelplumber 4y agoThat doesn't sound right. I think you owe us all another try. :-) I've been using it on 3-4 computers for over a decade and never had this happen...
- thrdbndndn 4y agoThis shouldn't happen, at least shouldn't happen frequently. I use all the major sync providers (namely Dropbox, GDrive, OneDrive) with three computers. Have only encountered sync problem <5 times (mostly happens when I didn't open certain computer for a long time) and they all have been just having duplicate files.
- Filligree 4y agoTake a look at Syncthing. I think you'll like it. ;-)
- gibspaulding 4y agoHeh, I've done exactly what your parent describes on an entire directory with syncthing. It was my fault for misunderstanding how to add a new device, but that catastrophic confusion has scared me away ever since.
- Filligree 4y agoHow did that happen? I've got ZFS snapshots as well, so I'm not overly worried, but I wasn't aware that was a failure mode.
- gibspaulding 4y agoIf I remember right, I was adding a new device and misread the dialog for which way to sync the files. I ended up setting it up so that an empty directory overrode a full one. It was pretty immediately obvious what I'd done, and I was able to recover from a backup, but that brief moment of panic after realizing what I'd done definitely got my attention! This definitely isn't a criticism of the SyncThing project, I just made a dumb error, but it is a lesson on not "testing in prod" or entrusting important data with a non-professional (such as myself).
- thom 4y agoSorry that happened! I’ve used one Dropbox account across about 20 machines in my life, usually with 2/3 overlapping at any one time, and I’ve never lost anything.