Drop Box

[Blaine]

I've never really used Drop Box much but have had it for some time and only got it so that a few clients that used it could get files to me.

 

Recently I've met a few people that use it extensively, and after reviewing it am thinking about loading my company stuff onto it so that I can access it easier. I currently use a password protected 128 gig chip that I carry on my key chain that's password protected. But drop box seems like a better way to manage things over all, and I see where I can get either a 1 terabyte of 2 terabyte account for about a hundred bucks a year.

 

Any advice from any drop box aficionados? I'm thinking about putting all my stuff company wise on a drop box account. Currently around 50 gigs worth. Should I be aware of anything? Any horror stories about drop box?

 

Any advice is much appreciated!

[yukon]

I've used the free Dropbox a few times for hosting small files.

 

Here's a useful Dropbox tip. If you want to share a file via a hyperlink use ?raw=1 at the end of the URL.

 

• hxxps://www.dropbox.com/s/random-letters-numbers-here/some-image.png?raw=1

 

You can get the URL by right clicking on the the file on your offline PC Dropbox folder then select Copy Dropbox Link. The end of the copied Dropbox file URL will be ?dl=0, change that to ?raw=1.

 

The contents of the offline Dropbox folder automatically syncs with the online account so you can post a link to a file anywhere online and make edits all day long, online traffic will always have the latest version of the file as long as you don't delete or change the file name inside the offline Dropbox folder, just overwrite the old file, that way it keeps the old file URL. It really is cool how they have that setup.

[Jack Gordon]

I love Dropbox.

 

I travel a ton, so it is my go-to resource for any files I may need on the road. It is also nice for any files I want to keep working on after leaving the office.

 

I have never had any issues or concerns with it. They do a great job.

[Rob Whisonant]

I'm very happy with dropbox. I use it for files I will be editing remotely. For example. If I am writing an article I keep it in dropbox so I can work on it where ever I am. Once it is done, I move it out of dropbox.

 

I also keep research material I need access to in dropbox.

 

I guess you could say I use dropbox like a briefcase.

[Guest]

I don't use dropbox for my stuff (too wrapped up in Google Drive), but I do have an account there for use with clients - one of the things they do well is their API.

 

The first time I worked with it was to write a small function to automatically do a daily backup a MySQL DB, zip it up and then upload it to a specific folder on the client's dropbox account. I was impressed - took about thirty minutes to figure out the dropbox end of things and it worked flawlessly from the first try. 

 

While I prefer Google Drive, dropbox is an excellent alternative - never had any problems and a lot of my clients seem to prefer it to Google. 

 

@Blaine - As to putting all your business-related stuff on dropbox, that is a sound idea. I have had all of my various business and personal (photos, videos, etc.) stuff on Google Drive for many years now. It's solved a lot of problems for me over the years in terms of organization and collaboration. 

 

For example, my accountant and his clerks have access to certain spreadsheets, some of which can be edited by them (depends on the person). My accountant, who still thinks it's 1986 and needs everything on spreadsheets, first struggled with this concept, but now he's trying to get his other clients to convert. My lawyer (no longer in-house), has access to a variety of legal documents to keep things up-to-date for us. We also collaborate with a number of internal and external colleagues in this way...it's an incredible time saver. 

 

One word of caution, mainly because I'm anal retentive, LOL - make sure you periodically backup and download any genuinely critical files every three months or so, just to be safe. Because of the volume of files I have online, I have a rolling, incremental backup every 15 days, downloading about 15% of what's there, especially the newer files.

 

Even though I have a lot of faith in Google, I have more faith in myself, LOL. 

[perryny]

I'm an IT consultant and I keep 25 years of my business and client data on Dropbox. I also keep all of my photos and personal documents there. Also, all of the IM stuff I've purchased and collected over the years (quite a collection I must admit.)

 

In other words, I trust Dropbox for my file storage.

 

The only data (aside from applications) on my hard drives is my music collection (synced with Google Play),video files and a continuously syncing copy of the Dropbox data. Meaning, if Dropbox goes "poof" for whatever reason, I've still got copies of my data on several of my computers. But just in case, I run regular, automated backups of all my data to an external HD. 

 

I'm currently using less than 300 GB of a 1 TB limit. I think they provide a great value.

 

That said, Dropbox isn't perfect.

 

I've got a client with 4 employees and they use Dropbox for Business to store and share all their company data. I've had to visit the client twice in the last two months to get Dropbox syncing properly. Some users would see all the data, and some users would be missing stuff that was definitely uploaded. Both times to address the issue, I did a workstation cleanup and then fully removed and reinstalled Dropbox. Things seem to be running smoothly there now.

 

Earlier this week, I was on the train on my way in to work and I wanted to open a file on my mobile, that I've been working on (on my pc) the night before. I couldn't find it. When I got to my computer that night, the file was right where it was supposed to be. I didn't bother trying to open it with my phone again.

 

But two minutes ago, when I opened the app to check how much space I'm using, Dropbox has a message at the top of the window stating, "Please Reinstall Dropbox to Fix All Your Syncing Icons". 

 

That explains the problem. I wonder how many of my other computers have this message sitting, just waiting to be discovered. And I wonder how many files aren't synced (Dropbox at my client's office did not display this error message.)

 

Another issue I've had with them was with their mobile app. They did an update where every time you opened the app, it defaulted to showing you your folder list. At the top of the folder list was your "Recents" folder, and every time you opened the app, you'd instantly have your list of maybe 10 or 20 of your last opened files, conveniently listed for you.

 

You couldn't tell Dropbox not to display "Recents"

You couldn't clear "Recents"

You couldn't put a different folder at the top of the folder list.

You couldn't open Dropbox to a different view, where it wouldn't show a folder list.

 

So, anytime ANYONE picks up your mobile device and opens Dropbox, they can see and open what you were last working on.

 

Kinda a big deal if you ask me.

 

I Googled, and found this thread on their support site started in January of 2015. https://www.dropboxforum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/203130809-How-to-Clear-or-Remove-the-Recent-file-list-in-mobile-apps

 

I wasn't the only taking issue with this new "feature".

 

Now, I just checked my phone, and the issue seems to have been fixed for me. Yay. I honestly don't know when it was fixed.

 

But people are still posting in the thread that the issue remains for them, and if you read through the thread a bit, you'll see the level of communication from Dropbox is... lacking.

 

This wasn't a deal breaker for me. I just rarely used Dropbox on my mobile and when I did, I was careful what to open.

 

But the way Dropbox handled this issue I think is a warning to us to protect our data. Because if Dropbox does go "poof", I wouldn't expect too much help from their customer support.

[Blaine]

Thanks for the input!

Got the terabyte account and am going forward with it.