How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795 • Hacker News Board

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#161

Post by robomartin » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:31 PM UTC

edanm wrote: post #107

Another Dropbox horror story: My colleague lost most of his Dropbox folder last week, and wasn't able to recover everything. What happened: he had Dropbox synced to 2 computers, but one of them hadn't been used in a while. He turned on the old computer, and apparently, for some reason, Dropbox decided that the fact that many files weren't there was because they were deleted. Of course, the files weren't there because…

Down-voted because I think that it is just dumb to have a Dropbox account and forgo local backup of the files on the service. Dropbox is not an extension of your mission-critical local storage and backup.

My approach for Dropbox on both Windows and OSX is to have the Dropbox folder on a drive that will never see development work, even if that means creating a separate partition for it. In most cases the system drive works fine (you do have separate system and data drives on your machines, right?).

This forces a COPY operation rather than a file MOVE if you drag-and-drop files into any Dropbox folder. Which means that everything in the Dropbox folder could be trashed tomorrow and nothing whatsoever would be lost.

On Windows you can also do this by dragging files while holding down the RMB and on OSX while holding down the Option key. This, however, is fraught with issues because it is easy to forget and move something in or out of Dropbox accidentally.

In addition to that, daily system and data backups to external media on EVERY SYSTEM in the office ensures that even if you took a sledge-hammer to any given machine all the data could be recovered to within a 24 hour boundary.

So, no, this is NOT a "Dropbox horror story" as far as I am concerned. At best this is an unfortunate "pilot error" and at worst this is a sign of incompetence.

Sorry, a little harsh there, but, as a student, I lost six months of heavy coding work once in college. That really hurt. And that was probably the best time and place to learn that lesson. That is all it took for me to be completely insane about having backups of backups on anything important. Now, may years later, you will not find any critical system in my office that is not backed-up at least once and usually twice.

These days there's almost no excuse for loosing your work. Don't go around blaming Dropbox, not their problem.

I am not associated with Dropbox in any way other than being just another user.

FEATURE REQUEST: It would be very nice if Dropbox client software could have an option to auto-magically COPY files in and out of Dropbox rather than allowing any files to be moved. The above-mentioned hack works fine but it'd be nice to not have to use it. Also, I'd venture to guess that most Dropbox users don't do this, which opens them to unintended loss.

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#162

Post by nigelsampson » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:37 PM UTC

I've run into this problem as well, for me the easiest solution was to run Skydrive for personal and Dropbox teams for work.

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#163

Post by codygman » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:38 PM UTC

zaidf wrote: post #153

uptown wrote: post #86

If I were Dropbox, and designing this feature, I'd have created two folders inside the master Dropbox folder. "Personal" and "Teams" then inside the "Teams" folder, I'd have created a folder for each team a person is invited to join. I realize that structure wasn't in-place when Dropbox was first created, complicating the matter - but it seems like it would have provided the cleanest way to delineate what files and a…

Considering huge number of users will never use the Teams folder, it seems like an additional click for no good reason for most users.

Only display the teams folder if the user is a member of one or more teams... easy fix.

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#164

Post by jiayo » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:44 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #161

edanm wrote: post #107

Another Dropbox horror story: My colleague lost most of his Dropbox folder last week, and wasn't able to recover everything. What happened: he had Dropbox synced to 2 computers, but one of them hadn't been used in a while. He turned on the old computer, and apparently, for some reason, Dropbox decided that the fact that many files weren't there was because they were deleted. Of course, the files weren't there because…

Down-voted because I think that it is just dumb to have a Dropbox account and forgo local backup of the files on the service. Dropbox is not an extension of your mission-critical local storage and backup. My approach for Dropbox on both Windows and OSX is to have the Dropbox folder on a drive that will never see development work, even if that means creating a separate partition for it. In most cases the system drive…

> At best this is an unfortunate "pilot error" and at worst this is a sign of incompetence.

I'm not sure knowledge of an obscure Windows-specific drag and drop quirk should be a requirement for using Dropbox safely.

> you do have separate system and data drives on your machines, right?

I'm not sure use of a partition table editor should be a requirement for using Dropbox safely. Most people use the operating system that came installed on their PC as-is.

> daily system and data backups to external media

Dropbox makes the following claims on their website:

"Your files are safe"

"Even if you accidentally spill a latte on your laptop, have no fear! You can relax knowing that Dropbox always has you covered, and none of your stuff will ever be lost."

"Even if your computer has a meltdown, your stuff is always safe in Dropbox and can be restored in a snap. Dropbox is like a time machine that lets you undo mistakes and even undelete files you accidentally trash. "

I think it's completely reasonable to expect Dropbox to be a reliable backup solution as-is.

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#165

Post by rogerbinns » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:45 PM UTC

sean_lynch wrote: post #119

Hey guys - Dropbox product manager here, tl;dr: The scenario described by the OP is now less likely to occur. Since October, individual Dropbox users are encouraged to create separate accounts when invited to a Team and warned that Teams admins will have control over the account. We want individual and Team Dropbox users to have the best possible experience. Some users want to migrate their personal accounts into a T…

> ... individual Dropbox users are encouraged to create separate accounts ...

If only your software actually worked in that scenario. Every single piece of your software is hard wired to believe you only have exactly one account. For example the Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS clients, as well as the website. To see your other account involves logouts and logging back in again having to enter the other account email and password (not saved).

> Users can quickly switch between using personal and Teams accounts on the web today

Huh, the only thing that works for me is to logout and log back in again. I have a personal paid account and a separate team account. What I would expect is how google do it - the account dropdown having your other logged in accounts available for selection.

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#166

Post by gmazzotti » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:46 PM UTC

sean_lynch wrote: post #119

Hey guys - Dropbox product manager here, tl;dr: The scenario described by the OP is now less likely to occur. Since October, individual Dropbox users are encouraged to create separate accounts when invited to a Team and warned that Teams admins will have control over the account. We want individual and Team Dropbox users to have the best possible experience. Some users want to migrate their personal accounts into a T…

It will be as easy as making a folder called TEAM (or the team name) in the user account when he joins a team and automatically delet that folder when he is out from the team

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#167

Post by ubershmekel » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:47 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #161

edanm wrote: post #107

Another Dropbox horror story: My colleague lost most of his Dropbox folder last week, and wasn't able to recover everything. What happened: he had Dropbox synced to 2 computers, but one of them hadn't been used in a while. He turned on the old computer, and apparently, for some reason, Dropbox decided that the fact that many files weren't there was because they were deleted. Of course, the files weren't there because…

Down-voted because I think that it is just dumb to have a Dropbox account and forgo local backup of the files on the service. Dropbox is not an extension of your mission-critical local storage and backup. My approach for Dropbox on both Windows and OSX is to have the Dropbox folder on a drive that will never see development work, even if that means creating a separate partition for it. In most cases the system drive…

Do you not trust dropbox as a backup of your data at all or do you require 2 backups of everything?

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#168

Post by rogerbinns » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:50 PM UTC

drivers99 wrote: post #125

mikeash wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People frequently confuse file syncing facilities with backup facilities, and I don't think Dropbox does much to clarify which one they are. Although, I thought Dropbox kept a history on each file going back a month.....

Shoot. I've been thinking of dropbox as my backup. Now I wonder what would qualify as backup considering I want it to be automated and preferably not require me to write to media like DVDs. (Time Machine seems to be doing the trick on the Mac side, although... having all the backup media connected to the machine it's backing up means it's susceptible to simultaneous deletion, as well not being offsite means it is sus…

All my systems (Linux) use btrfs and I have cron jobs making regular snapshots including of the Dropbox folders, so even if horrible things happened I still would have access to the original files. I'd have to have Dropbox mess up server side and have something bad happen to all of my client machines.

On Windows you can get the same effect using VSS - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_Copy

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#169

Post by gabemart » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:58 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #161

edanm wrote: post #107

Another Dropbox horror story: My colleague lost most of his Dropbox folder last week, and wasn't able to recover everything. What happened: he had Dropbox synced to 2 computers, but one of them hadn't been used in a while. He turned on the old computer, and apparently, for some reason, Dropbox decided that the fact that many files weren't there was because they were deleted. Of course, the files weren't there because…

Down-voted because I think that it is just dumb to have a Dropbox account and forgo local backup of the files on the service. Dropbox is not an extension of your mission-critical local storage and backup. My approach for Dropbox on both Windows and OSX is to have the Dropbox folder on a drive that will never see development work, even if that means creating a separate partition for it. In most cases the system drive…

>At best this is an unfortunate "pilot error"

It is in no way "pilot error". If the post you replied to is correct, the dropbox software performed an action it should never perform - deleting files the user did not tell the OS to delete. What's more, every dropbox plan I'm aware of keeps deleted files for 30 days, so if it wasn't possible to recover some of the files, dropbox failed not once but twice.

It's all very well blaming the user for not having multiple redundant backups, but that doesn't change the fact that deleting user data without explicitly being told to do so is one of the most egregious sins software can commit. It's not "pilot error" when the software performs an action that should never occur.

Re: How to terminate your worst enemy's Dropbox account for only $795

#170

Post by ewang1 » Mon, Dec 24, 2012, 7:58 PM UTC

sean_lynch wrote: post #119

Hey guys - Dropbox product manager here, tl;dr: The scenario described by the OP is now less likely to occur. Since October, individual Dropbox users are encouraged to create separate accounts when invited to a Team and warned that Teams admins will have control over the account. We want individual and Team Dropbox users to have the best possible experience. Some users want to migrate their personal accounts into a T…

One easy way to solve this problem would be to do it like how Github distinguish between personal and organization repositories (with a context switcher dropdown).

On the backend, this would involve converting all current accounts into "sub-accounts". Joining a team would basically create a brand new sub-account under the same login.