Earlier quoted context omitted.
Dropbox still has the best syncing tech [1][2] which handles complex situations with lots of files and responds instantly. That alone is worth it if you need it. However the rest of the product is crap. Dropbox had a solid business with a "magic folder that syncs" but has been chasing new features and product lines with little success. Even the enterprise offering was far behind Box.com for years and now has tons of…
Maybe Dropbox's is the best out of a bunch of mediocre syncing solutions. However, I do wish to add that Dropbox struggles with scale: lots of small files slow down sync to a crawl and spin CPU at 100%. Concretely, I had a certain folder with 100,000+ small files for some research I was doing with a collaborator. It took my laptop 24 hours to sync this folder, and throughout my CPU was at 100% throughout. For compari…
Rsync is great for taking a snapshot and replicating it elsewhere, which is probably a better fit for research projects anyway.