by kilroy123 on 1/30/17, 7:43 PM
So will this ever be available for paying customers that aren't on a business plan? If not, that is incredibly frustrating.
I pay for their service every month. I am not a business, so why should I pay more to have a feature that should be standard? Plus loads of features I don't want or need?
by chias on 1/30/17, 10:28 PM
Local filesystem interface to files which exist "only" on the cloud is basically the way Keybase FS operates. If this is a "killer feature" for you, consider giving it a try. The downsides at the moment are (a) alpha software, and (b) 10 gig limit. It is free though, very convenient, and does a lot of things "right" (by my way of thinking).
https://keybase.io/docs/kbfs
by petters on 1/30/17, 7:18 PM
> Smart Sync will be available for all Dropbox Business and enterprise customers today for early access.
I really hope us regular users will get it soon as well. This is great and how file syncing should work.
by AlecSchueler on 1/30/17, 8:53 PM
It's interesting how much this sounds like NFS. NFS works great, and serves a fairly obvious use case, but obviously requires some working knowledge of Unix and ssh technologies etc. Smart Sync gives a one-click install and forget solution. It makes me wonder why it took so long for this to be made, and what other things we Unix-heads take for granted that could easily be ported and marketed to a wider audience.
by AlexandrB on 1/30/17, 8:02 PM
I think I'll pass on giving Dropbox a direct line into my computer's kernel.
by BadassFractal on 1/30/17, 8:55 PM
Any chance they will let us store more than 1TB on the individual paid version of the product? I have a terabytes worth of RAW file format photographs that I currently have to store on S3, but I'd much rather keep everything on Dropbox if I can.
https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/160by desireco42 on 1/30/17, 11:05 PM
I gave up on Dropbox long time ago. Maybe I am wrong, but with data loss and other issues, especially limit on space, I found BTSync better suited for my needs. It's been working for years now.
I think Dropbox could've innovated much more then they did, to make their offering more compelling to guys like me. They didn't and that is unfortunate. I think they feel pressured now but it might be a little late and their solutions are kind of artificial and inspired by others... (paper for example)
by odabaxok on 1/30/17, 7:13 PM
by nvr219 on 1/30/17, 8:24 PM
I wish I could enforce this as dropbox administrator to my users... like when they install, have "smart sync" on specific folders instead of default to downloading everything.
by abalone on 1/30/17, 10:07 PM
How does this compare technically to iCloud[1] and (lesser known) Upthere[2]? And any other cloud storage providers that treat local files as purgeable / do selective syncing.
For example one major difference I've noticed is iCloud can sync while asleep (Power Nap). This has proven to be very useful with my iCloud Photo Library, which has tons of syncing to do every day and night over a slow connection.
Another distinction with Apple's approach, maybe not directly comparable to Dropbox Business, is how it is integrated with apps. I mentioned photos, but it also covers iTunes music and movies/TV. It lets it be smarter than a purely filesystem level sync, like downloading photo previews and purging movies only after you've watched them. In other words it has a direct Dropbox competitor in iCloud Drive, but also adds domain-specific syncing.
Are there any advantages to Dropbox's approach?
[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206996
[2] https://upthere.com/technology
by johnhattan on 1/31/17, 2:21 AM
So how does this work with stuff like virus scanners or text-searches that read all the bytes of all the files in a hierarchy?
Does it load up all the files locally and then LRU-discard them only to load them all up again the next time the virus-scanner runs?
by dkonofalski on 1/30/17, 8:42 PM
I'm really interested in the last part of the article where the file is store locally (with checks against space) for very large files and where only the diff is synced between the cloud and the local machine. That might work wonders for people that share large files constantly but it might also be a headache if you're trying to determine a diff for a binary file instead of something simple like ASCII text.
by akeck on 1/31/17, 3:12 AM
ExpanDrive on Mac and Win gives the same experience, but with almost any cloud storage backend. I combine it with unlimited Amazon Cloud Drive.
by praveenperera on 1/30/17, 8:43 PM
I've wanted this forever now, if they enable this on normal pro accounts I will finally pay for dropbox.
by mixedCase on 1/31/17, 12:04 AM
This has been available since forever in any of the Dropbox FUSE implementations.
by mankash666 on 1/30/17, 8:22 PM
Wonder how this compares to NFS/pNFS.
by niij on 1/31/17, 12:13 AM
Is this available for Linux? I couldn't find information one way or the other on Dropbox's site.
by nkkollaw on 1/31/17, 12:42 AM
iCloud removed a 800MB Photoshop file while I was working on it today, and I had to download it again (luckily I had saved my work, but the file was still open).
I didn't expect that. I guess if it's open but not modified it isn't locked?
These things are not that intuitive, just yet.
by beached_whale on 1/31/17, 1:41 AM
If the business package could upload photo's from phone devices I would consider it.
by raverbashing on 1/30/17, 8:04 PM
This sounds like NFS for the .js age
Slower, buggier and less reliable (and I mean, yes, compared to NFS)
by Animats on 1/30/17, 7:26 PM
Haven't they had that for years, except with more local caching?
by sikhote on 1/30/17, 11:55 PM
Still no .ignore list :(
by dpratt on 1/31/17, 3:53 AM
I ditched Dropbox years ago - I have no tolerance for any platform that requires an invisible (and not terribly inspectable) patch to my kernel.
Plus, it ate batteries like nobody's business.