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I do this. What happens if Dropbox deletes a file though, on the server? Then it would vanish from the computer as well. If it was an important but rarely check
by graeme 12y ago
I do this. What happens if Dropbox deletes a file though, on the server? Then it would vanish from the computer as well. If it was an important but rarely checked file, you might not notice for months or years, by which time it might be difficult to retrieve a copy.
Does anyone have more info on the likelihood of this + the possible ways to solve it if it happens? It occurred to me that most of my important files are potentially deletable via Dropbox.
- winter_blue 12y agoThey wouldn't delete your file randomly for no reason, unless for a bug. But user data is top priority at Dropbox (it's what their business is all about), so you're extremely unlikely to loose it. They most likely have lots of redundancy. Now if you accidentally delete something and want to recover it, you have 30 days to do so with a free account. With a paid account, your history is kept forever (basically files are never deleted).
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- CamperBob2 12y agoIt's best if you don't think of Dropbox as a backup service. People treat it that way (and I'm guilty of it too) but a file-sync provider is really a very different thing at heart.
- fencepost 12y agoDropbox is not a backup. Dropbox is a file sync service with some limited backup features. AFAIK it also hasn't actually ever reported profits, but it's well enough backed and dominant enough that it's unlikely to disappear. What should happen in the case of missing a file deletion until beyond Dropbox's 30-day versioning windows is that you retrieve the file from your automated backups of at least one of the computers that Dropbox is syncing to.
- graeme 12y ago>What should happen in the case of missing a file deletion until beyond Dropbox's 30-day versioning windows is that you retrieve the file from your automated backups of at least one of the computers that Dropbox is syncing to. What would you use for these automatic backups? I use backblaze for my whole computer. However, I think they also only keep file changes for 30 days past change date.
- zyxley 12y agoI use Crashplan, which is a little slower and clunkier than other services but keeps infinite versions of files, including deleted files (unlike Backblaze).
- graeme 12y agoI could try Crashplan again. When I attempted it before, it never successfully synced, despite hours spent emailing system reports back and forth with their support reps. I would pay Backblaze double if they kept past versions.
- NeutronBoy 12y agoTarsnap (https://www.tarsnap.com https://www.tarsnap.com) is great and easy to configure, if you can deal with not having a GUI. Colin Percival (the guy who maintains it) is also amazing with support - he was responding to my emails on Christmas day!
- bigiain 12y agoI use TimeMachine and three large harddrives - a pair in raid1 that TimeMachine does it's normal thing with, then another drive that powers up once a week and rsyncs off that raid pair. If I were _properly_ paranoid, I'd also set up an off-site backup drive - perhaps using TahoeLAFS. I figure the chance of Dropbox losing my data at the same time as I lose three bits of electronics at my house is pretty small. For non OSX users, you can fairly trivially roll-your-own TimeMachine-like snapshot backup process in Linux using rsync, cron, and a little bash - it's not like Apple invented it... It might even be just as simple using Powertools on Windows.
- richchetwynd 12y agoYou can always backup both your Dropbox and Evernote to a single place. I'm the founder of https://revert.io https://revert.io and that's exactly what we've built our service to do. Love any feedback if you want to try it out. Thanks!
- 8bitpony 12y agoThis looks great, I've signed up.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- gcr 12y agoOn new accounts, Dropbox only allows a paid upgrade to store one year of file history.
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- hobarrera 12y agoIf you're so scared that your files are so easily deleteable, why don't you keep backups?
- graeme 12y agoI do, but if Dropbox deleted a file, it would be deleted off the synced backup too, unless I get something with infinite version history.
- k-mcgrady 12y agoWhy would you sync the backup? Just backup the contents of your Dropbox folder to a hard drive every night. Then it's on the hard drive and Dropbox can't access it.
- walterbell 12y agoIncremental backups or deduplicating storage (ZFS)?
- hobarrera 12y agoSo you keep your files and your backups in dropbox? Rule 1 of backups is "don't keep your files and your backups in the same place". Pretty much common sense.