Thus by changing the value of the HOME environmental variable when we execute dropboxd, we can change the configuration folder and have as many instances as we want. The location used by Dropbox for the configuration directory is $HOME/.dropbox. dropbox configuration folder.Īs it is in this folder where all the configuration for an instance is stored, where all the cached elements are kept and also where the pid file is kept what prevents multiple instances using the same config. The key to be able to run more than one Dropbox instance is to know how Dropbox determines the location of the. If you try executing dropboxd, it will complain saying that Dropbox is already running (for syncing the folder in the home directory). The first one has all the configuration for the Dropbox instance, while the latter has the binary dropboxd and the files required by it. ![]() Running a second instance of Dropboxĭropbox installs the folders. The reason behind this decision is that if I accidentally delete something from Dropbox, the backup will still have it and it won't sync until I tell it to do so. I run the external hd Dropbox instance manually and I haven't automated this process. In this way it doesn't interfere with the files that I actually want to have always synced in my desktop. I run an instance of Dropbox solely for the purpose of syncing my external hard-drive. ApproachĪfter doing some research I decided to take the following approach in order to tackle the problem. With this you get a partial syncing of your Dropbox account in your local folder.īut after what happened to me with Bitcasa (I lost files, MANY files), I want to have a physical backup copy in an external HD to be on the safe side in any event. One possibility is to restrict the content to be mirrored. I have a 256Gb disk and around 100Gb of data to store in Dropbox. The problem with this is that it requires to have as much space in the device where the dropbox folder is as the contents stored in Dropbox.įor my immediate situation, that would work but it is definitely not going to scale. The daemon monitors any changes in the folder or cloud and keeps both copies synced. When you setup the daemon, you select a folder to be mirrored to the cloud. This allowed me to not have to worry about disk-space in my physical hard-drive.ĭropbox, on the other hand, doesn't work like this. It would download the chunks of the requested files on demand and keep them in a cache. There was no "syncing" of the files in the sense that the files only existed in the cloud provider. One of the things I liked about Bitcasa is that they provided a FUSE that But it will be a topic for another blogpost) (During this process I found out how broken Bitcasa is/was and got really furious. This forced me to change to another cloud storage provider and I decided to use Dropbox. Perhaps someone here might be able to suggest a few alternatives? Thanking you in advance.This little project started because Bitcasa is dropping their Personal Drive product which I used to use. My searches for a service that offers similar functionality - encryption, large storage capacity and easy access as a mounted folder - have drawn a blank. This is not an immediate concern but will soon be one since I would like the ability to read/write to Bitdrive from as many as 15 servers spread across the world. Quite apart from the fact that they got some bad press towards the end of 2014 the one thing that bothers me is that they impose a constraint of 5 connected devices. ![]() In many ways what they are offering is perfect - a large volume of securely encrpyted cloud storage which I can mount as a shared drive across all my servers. ![]() What I like about it is the fact that it is so easy to mount a Bitdrive as a folder on Ubuntu (they only claim to work with Ubuntu 13.04- but as far as I can see it appears to work just fine on my 64 it Ubuntu 14.10 server. I ran into a service called Bitcasa Bitdrive today.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |