Dropbox review

I love it

I use the free Dropbox (plus top ups from recommendations) and use it for pretty much all my documentation. I store some images, but not photos, videos or music (which would be a strain on the free account).

Whether I'm using my phone, home PC or work PC I can then access anything that I need without a problem - it works wonderfully well.

One thing I would like to see, though, is the ability to run multiple Dropbox installations on one PC. My wife uses Dropbox too but is unable to on the main home PC as it's set up for my own.

David.

By artiss on 30 Mar 2012

You can run multiple Dropbox accounts on the same PC - you just need to set up other users with their own user account. There also some third-party add-ons that fudge it for the same login, but having separate logins brings so many advantages, I don't know why you'd want to use them.

By timfg on 30 Mar 2012

Awesome product for students

Im currently working my way through my PhD and dropbox is invaluable. All of my uni work is stored in a dropbox folder, so it can be accessed at university, in a library or at home, meaning I can work anywhere. Also my research group has a dropbox, allowing us to share documents quickly and easily. In my opinion, Dropbox is one of the greatest things to come out of the net in the past 5 years.

By Ischaria on 31 Mar 2012

I agree that for backing up it would be much better if we could specify the folder/files to be backed up, rather than having to put stuff into a special folder on the computer.
Others such as Syncplicity do it so why can't Dropbox?

By KMJones1 on 1 Apr 2012

SugarSync

Single folder limitation was the reason I moved to SugarSync.
Works great, can sync any folder and free account allows 5GB.

By aa111 on 2 Apr 2012

Photo sync

1 min 44 secs sounds a bit long, my photos usually sync up within 30 seconds, and these are usually over 4MB.

By ICT_Tower on 3 Apr 2012

Old Syncplicity user

I used to use Syncplicity because of the single folder issue. But after trying Dropbox I realised it wasn't such a big issue after all.

Also, they didn't have their own app for accessing files on an iOS device, which I needed for work. There was one written by a 3rd party developer which was poor, expensive and badly supported.

Syncplicity also refused to implement delta changes despite many users asking for it. This wasn't such a big issue for me but I due appreciate the speed at which changes are synced with Dropbox.

I don't miss Syncplicity at all.

By ICT_Tower on 3 Apr 2012

SugarSync tops Dropbox

SugarSync does everything Dopbox does and so much more. It's simple tick-box selection of all the main personal Windows folders is simplicity itself. And you get 5Gb free. It's a no brainer.

By MedMan2005 on 3 Apr 2012

Immediate synch for publicly available files

I have lots of PDFs in my Dropbox folder so I can access them from anywhere.

As most of these are publicly available on the net, Dropbbox doesn't even need to upload them to its servers. By knowing the signature of the file it never uploads it; synching is immediate.

Also, if you are on a LAN it can share via the local network rather than through the internet.

By JohnJohn164 on 4 Apr 2012

Confused by one thing in the review

I use dropbox both for my business and home. It has nailed the issue I used to have of sharing data in a mixed MAC PC environment without jumping through hoops. One thing on the article though this sentence really puzzled me: "On the other hand, there’s no way to sync specific files and folders – your Music folder, say – without moving them into the Dropbox, which doesn’t really suit the way Windows works."

Why doesn't that suit the way windows works? I just moved the my musix folder to my dropbox, remapped the 'my music' library to where I dropped it and everything 'just works'. On multiple machines...

By Captivator on 5 Apr 2012

BrightonJohn

Your reviewer mentions the limitation of having to put things into a drop box folder before they sync. for work that I want to sync I merely use a drop box folder for those files by default BUT I do then include my drop box folder in my daily backup routines.

By BrightonJohn on 5 Apr 2012

SugarSync

I have been using Dropbox and SugarSync for more than a year and find SugarSync extremely versatile, does more than Dropbox, offers more space and has never failed.

By frapro on 5 Apr 2012

I use a Windows utility called transition with Dropbox. Transition copies any file saved in my working directory to the Dropbox directory. I prefer this to leaving my working directory to the mercies of Dropbox.

By mark_norman on 5 Apr 2012

biggest bugbear

I use this personally and at work and not being abel to set read/write permissions for shared files for users is a bit of a pain.

Other than that Dropbox is great and does everything I need of it

By Bunnyman on 11 Apr 2012

Dropbox alternative

Great article. Very insightful. If anyone is seeking digital asset management software with more features that suit their needs cost effectively try https://www.medialightbox.com/signup

By MediaLightBox on 20 Apr 2012

Great online storage to have...

been using Dropbox eversince i learned about online storage...my boss usually sends huge amount of files so he suggested i should have this...right now, i am into OpenDrive which I use personally...there are a few features which DB cannot offer like a custom monthly plan and the one where you can make file hotlinking and sell your uploads to any of your colleagues without any hassle...DB only offers a very limited GB for Free while OpenDrive generously gives 5GB free space be it for windows, Mac, iPhone or Android apps...

By SelenaExtremes on 13 Jun 2012

Sync365

Reading through this I have to say what I like about drop box is it simplicity and easy to use...

I also tried Sugarsync again its okay... but I fell in love with Sync365.co.uk and for me they are UK based so I can speak to someone

By M4rzi on 29 Nov 2012

Not a backup service!

Guys, Dropbox is not an online backup service as such. It is really just a sharing facility. Watch out that your data is accessible and still there after many months. I stay on the safe side and use a local online backup service http://www.soteriabackup.co.za which is a tested service especially created for online backup.

By SoteriaBackup on 4 Dec 2012