Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

5 million Dropboxes

blog.dropbox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 80 posts

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#71

Post by sailormoon »

jon_dahl wrote: post #53
matthew-wegner wrote: post #19

Anyone else notice that Dropbox globally indexes files? If you upload a large file already elsewhere on their servers (Linux distro ISO, scene-made TVRip or DVDRip, etc), it "uploads" instantly, and will begin downloading immediately on your other linked Dropbox machines. Makes me wonder how hard it is to download a file by hash (via the Linux client, parts of which are open-source), without having the file, or how e…

The good news for video pirates is: -- Every time a video is encoded, it hashes differently. So a studio could find a torrented file and find people downloaded that exact copy, but they couldn't just ask for every copy of a show. -- If this became a problem, you could toss some random metadata on a file and it would hash differently. Or zip a file/program with a text file containing a guid. Etc.

Every time a video is encoded, it hashes differently.

Really? Even with the exact same source file and exact same codecs/methodology? Why is that, is there an "encoding time" metadata field or something?

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#72

Post by jefffoster »

ThinkWriteMute wrote: post #66
matthew-wegner wrote: post #19

Anyone else notice that Dropbox globally indexes files? If you upload a large file already elsewhere on their servers (Linux distro ISO, scene-made TVRip or DVDRip, etc), it "uploads" instantly, and will begin downloading immediately on your other linked Dropbox machines. Makes me wonder how hard it is to download a file by hash (via the Linux client, parts of which are open-source), without having the file, or how e…

You know this makes me think: If you could find out if two files are exactly alike, could you then make a cloud storage services that doesn't require uploads of files it already has on the entire cloud? IE, John uploads True Blood Episode 4, Season 12. Paul tries to upload the same file. They match exactly (Except maybe for names). The Uploader negates the upload and makes it look like the file is now in Paul's list,…

Some file systems have this as a built in option. As an example, there's a discussion of the ZFS implementation at http://blogs.sun.com/bonwick/entry/zfs_dedup.

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#73

Post by sid0 »

nzmsv wrote: post #65
Sukotto wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dealkiller for me was it saves version info in it's application dir. Since my C:\ drive is typically very small it blows out the available space. So... back to using gmail-drive

I don't use Dropbox, but this sounds like something that can be easily solved with a symlink. And Windows actually (sort of) supports them: they are called junction points.

FTR, Windows supports real symlinks too.

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#74

Post by c1sc0 »

I especially liked the video. Just wondering: I see no activity in China. Does Dropbox work in China & is it just a matter of not enough traffic to show up? Can anyone confirm this?

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#75

Post by c1sc0 »

ugh wrote: post #26
mhartl wrote: post #5

Awesome work, guys. I propose that, at least in HN circles, the official plural of Dropbox should be Dropboxen .

Dropboxen /drɒp'bɔksn̩/ (German): (lit.) candy boxing. Compound word of „Drop“ (old fashioned) and „Boxen“.

same in Dutch ... Drop as in licorice-like candy ... the black evil stuff ;-)

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#76

Post by dale-cooper »

bj wrote: post #56

I really like the dropbox experience but I really wish they didn't limit the download bandwidth. My dropbox is about 35 GB, I just installed dropbox on a brand new computer and the download speed is 7KB/sec. It will literally take almost 20 days to sync my files. That's terrible. By the way, I'm an early adopter and have introduced dropbox to many people, I just hope download speeds were somewhat decent.

Yeah, i get pretty shitty speeds with dropbox too. But i'm guessing it's because i'm in europe and they only have US servers.. i usually max out at 100-200K which is pretty slow when you're used to 100MBit speeds :(

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#77

Post by noarchy »

felixmar wrote: post #48
andrewtj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, I thought it was middle of the range like Internode. The equivalent of Xs4all in Australia would be Telstra who's ADSL services start at 1.5M with 2gb (upload/download) for $39.95; additional usage charged at 15¢/MB and capped at an excess of $300.

That's pretty bad. Bandwidth caps and charges create a different mindset that hurts many providers like Dropbox. If i transfer a large file i only think about how long it will take, not how much it would cost. Unfortunately bandwidth caps are often due to a lack of competition between ISPs.

Which is exactly how it is in many parts of Canada. I can choose between cable and DSL, and both have bandwidth caps. While mine is a fairly generous 100 GB/month (good enough for me), I still keep a watch over my current totals, so I stay a little bit paranoid.

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#78

Post by pp »

Just in case someone from the Dropbox team is reading this, I wanted to compliment on the web UI. Really, it kicks some serious ass. I'm usually very picky when it comes to websites and their design, but this one is just a piece of art.

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#79

Post by ThinkWriteMute »

jefffoster wrote: post #72
ThinkWriteMute wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know this makes me think: If you could find out if two files are exactly alike, could you then make a cloud storage services that doesn't require uploads of files it already has on the entire cloud? IE, John uploads True Blood Episode 4, Season 12. Paul tries to upload the same file. They match exactly (Except maybe for names). The Uploader negates the upload and makes it look like the file is now in Paul's list,…

Some file systems have this as a built in option. As an example, there's a discussion of the ZFS implementation at http://blogs.sun.com/bonwick/entry/zfs_dedup .

Now that totally interests me. Thanks!

Re: 5 million Dropboxes

#80

Post by eogas »

For anyone who hasn't used it before, dropbox is great if you're in college. I use it to sync notes and assignments across all of my machines. I take notes in class on my laptop, and I can access them on my desktop. Furthermore, I can start assignments on my desktop at home, and work on them on my laptop between classes.
Post reply on HN