
Going back to Dropbox from Google Drive - ari_elle
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/drive/pVFlN_rfdqc
======
rdl
I've been testing Dropbox, box.net, Google Drive, and AeroFS head to head for
the past month or so (I guess I should add SpiderOak, Wuala, Bitcasa, and
maybe something else I don't know about)

They all do pretty well for small datasets (1-10GB of text files, office
documents, mp3s, and sometimes 1-2GB video files and similar files) on OSX and
Windows 7. I haven't tried them on Linux or mobile devices much. They all kind
of suck with multi-user access (which I simulated by putting clients on all my
machines and using them randomly), larger files, etc.

None have particularly good performance (fucking Comcast Business; reasonably
good on the colo LAN but still not what I'd consider great). Even with the LAN
Sync options turned on, adding a new large file with a few client devices on
the same LAN causes pain (multiple trips up and down...). A per-client 1/10 of
the link size throttle isn't really helpful with 10 clients. AeroFS is
different (since it's peer to peer), but is a lot slower than the LAN speed in
my experience to sync. Having clients on VPN sometimes makes the whole thing
even weirder, since machines on the same LAN aren't on the same network, so
syncing traffic goes over a (potentially remote) VPN. And then there's the
lulz caused by sync-over-cellular, which admittedly isn't transparent to the
client (mifi hotspot sometimes).

Looking forward to just getting an 8x4TB Synology or FreeNAS for home, syncing
with some combination of physical drives and rsync to/from the colo, and using
disk in the colo. iSCSI seems like the best solution.

In the long run, I think what's needed is a smarter client -- it should be
smart about syncing based on what network I'm on (VPN, LTE, etc.), pre-caching
some files and not others (either explicitly or predictively, and maybe
different on different devices)

There's also the huge mess of security -- both confidentiality and
versioning/availability. For multi-user, you can't just layer truecrypt on
top. It's depressing that someone yesterday asked "what's the best way to
manage corporate documents without putting a copy on every laptop..." (data
room style) and the best answer in 2012 seems to be SharePoint :(

~~~
rogerbinns
Another issue to consider is multiple accounts. For example I have 3 Google
accounts (1 personal, 2 for work). I also have two Dropbox accounts (1
personal, 1 work).

You are essentially in for a world of hurt because all the services want to
believe you only have one account, or at the very least a one to one mapping
between their accounts and user accounts on your systems.

Thankfully I was able to get dropbox running with two different dropbox
accounts but with one user account on my systems. This was because dropbox has
command line tools (for Linux only) so you can fake them out with different
$HOME settings.

But on Android etc I am SOL.

~~~
comex
Why have two accounts if the work account is not more secure than the personal
account (since both accounts are on your computers?) If you want some devices
to only have the work account, you could still use a shared folder to sync
between the work account and the personal account rather than actually using
two clients.

~~~
rogerbinns
I keep my personal content (eg photos, music, backups of my personal systems)
in my personal dropbox. My work dropbox contains software builds,
presentations, customer stuff etc. Both are paid accounts. I work from home
and hence use the same system for work and home activities.

What I want is to be able to access both sets of content on many of my
machines. For example I can read my work and home email on multiple devices.
But dropbox for Android only allows for one account, as does dropbox for
Windows and Mac.

Shared folders are a no go. First of all I don't want to mix personal and work
stuff. Secondly dropbox penalises you. For example if two users each
separately pay dropbox for a 100GB account and then user 1 shares 25GB of
content with user 2, dropbox will subtract 25GB from user 2's allowance. ie
what you pay for is the total amount of data you can access, not the amount of
unique data.

~~~
rdl
Couldn't you create multiple user accounts on Mac OSX and then leave one
dropbox account logged in in each account, and use local permissions to access
files in one account from the other? You could probably do the same with
Windows, although I'm not sure how permissions would work.

~~~
rogerbinns
Having to have an entire extra user session logged in, just to keep dropbox
running is _way_ overkill. I did briefly experiment on Linux having two user
accounts with different home directories but the same user id (numeric) but
other bits of the system really didn't like that.

In any event my original point is that this sort of setup will increasingly
happen, none of the existing products handle it well, and it is a factor to
consider when choosing what products to use.

------
smegel
I used Google Drive for about 5 minutes then went back to Dropbox and haven't
looked back. Firstly, finding where the hell the Google drive folder was
located was a pain - then discovering it's odd internal hierarchy and the fact
that trying to open files in there launched Google Docs rather than the local
application default drove me mad.

Dropbox gives me exactly what I want and need: a simple folder that does sync
across all my devices and opens files using the local default application.

~~~
jorts
I'm not sure what you saw, but your Google Drive folder is just a subfolder
under your user folder, similar to how Dropbox is, I believe, in your My Docs
folder. You can also right click on the icon in the systray and browse to the
Google Drive folder. Are you not on Windows?

~~~
smegel
I think when I installed Dropbox I was able to choose the folder, or it
created a shortcut on my desktop. In truth the issue was not so much the
location, but the internal structure that seemed obscure at the time (this was
when GDrive first came out, might be different now).

Dropbox just appeared as a simple, normal folder. That's it. I put stuff in,
it got synced. I clicked on stuff inside, and it opened like a normal file in
any other folder. It just worked.

~~~
jorts
I'm pretty sure as skyhook_mockups described it's just a normal folder. GDrive
is going to offer a lot once more applications start offering their services
services based on what you store in GDrive which is what I see as the
differentiating factor for things stored in GDrive. I imagine Dropbox will
mimic it in time, but they're behind at the moment.

------
sakopov
With all of the hate towards Microsoft here i'm not really surprised of no
mention of SkyDrive. It's working quite well for me. I never had any technical
issues with Dropbox. I don't like their pricing model. The free account offers
less space than my Gmail. The pro account offers way too much space for my use
to even consider upgrading.

My other concern about Dropbox is that it took them weeks to figure out
whether or not their system was compromised not long ago with the help of
"outside experts." I don't know what to think of a company which hires others
to figure out what's going on with their systems. That worries me a little.

~~~
gurkendoktor
I don't think that HN particularly hates MS, it's just that few people here
live inside the MS ecosystem. Google Drive is relevant to those who live in
Google's cloud, Dropbox is relevant to all the Mac users I know. That's why
these two will be mentioned a lot more often.

~~~
Lazare
Actually, Skydrive works pretty well on OS X too. I'm pleasantly impressed
with it, to be honest.

------
revelation
What a scary sight. They are having mechanical turks roam their support forums
for support stars giving big-company-esque answers:

 _Sorry to hear your experience with Google Drive was troublesome PayamM.
Google Drive is constantly improving and thank you for the feedback!_

~~~
Evbn
Google's community managers are an embarrassment. They are supposed to help,
but they have no more knowledge and power than the users reporting bugs. It
would be more effective and less annoying to just have a script that marks
every thread "WONTFIX".

------
tlogan
At least uploading into Google Drive did not created hundreds of thousands of
duplicates [1] [2] [3]. I still did not get any official answer from Google
support.

[1]
[http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/drive/Yjmkd4nbhw...](http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/drive/Yjmkd4nbhw4/C_ns26Fn2gQJ)

[2]
[https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3910363?start=0&tst...](https://discussions.apple.com/thread/3910363?start=0&tstart=0)

[3]
[https://productforums.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/d...](https://productforums.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/drive/d45pvBXNnMM)

------
Gustomaximus
I thought to throw in SugarSnc since it hasn't been mentioned. I also have
Dropbox, Drive, Skydrive but Sugar is the one that seems to tick the most
boxes for me. It is very easy to choose what folders you sync and to which
devices as different devices font need all files. You can add passwords to
public folders which is a nice touch. And pricing (at least when I compared 18
months back) was quite competitive.

~~~
jerrya
I deleted Sugar when on Android it was taking up a significant amount of
battery and cycle -- and it was basically doing nothing to do that.

Have they fixed that? Is it better on battery on Android now?

~~~
Gustomaximus
...not really. On Android I do find it burning CPU/battery quite often so I
updated settings to only sync when plugged in and on WiFi. It is a minor
limitation for me and can do a manual sync if happen to need something from my
PC and am on the move.

My biggest bug bear is it asks to upload my photos every frickn time I log in
despite having deselected in settings and pressing the 'never' option.

------
jervisfm
Google Drive does appear to have performance issues with big data sets. I too
have a lot of data (20GB +) in the service and whenever I restart my machine,
it does churn the CPU "scanning the web" for changes. Memory usage is also
rather high at 600MB.

I have never really used dropbox so I don't know if that is really any better
from a resource standpoint although from the author of this post indicates
like that's the case.

I'm still sticking with Google Drive since I only restart my machine about
once a month, so this is not too much of a problem for me.

In any case, I hope that these issues would get addressed in a future update
to the client.

~~~
revelation
Dropbox startup can easily bring my "spinning rust" platter to knees. They
really need to copy TrueCrypts "make way for IO activity" option during
encryption.

~~~
jervisfm
I am curious, how much data do you sync up with drop box ?

------
icelancer
Since Dropbox offered me 50 GB for using a T-Mobile Samsung Galaxy S3, I've
stuck with them. I used Google Drive since I use the spreadsheets, and I
absolutely hate it. So I'm sticking with Dropbox for now.

------
ankitaggarwal
I moved back to Dropbox after a month of use. The only thing that bothered me
was google takes a long time to polish its product. Why should I be paying
during all this period.

------
tytso
Why does it have to be either/or? I use both Google Drive and Dropbox; the two
products have different strengths and weakness, and so I see them as
complementary.

~~~
Kristine
This has been my experience as well. Google Drive is indispensable for
editing, sharing, and collaborating on school files, while Dropbox has that
"just works" quality as far as storing and syncing my personal archive.

------
TopTrix
Dont know about large file size, but the problem with google drive is it is
the most memory eating application. It require around 150 MB RAM when not
synching. As compared to dropbox require only 40. Even if it has more space
for free users i will not use it. Dropbox primary and SkyDrive a secondary are
my choices.

~~~
wtallis
Are you _really_ complaining about a difference of 50 cents worth of RAM, and
saying you won't use Google Drive on that basis alone?

~~~
Evbn
It costs far more than 50c to upgrade from 8.0GB to 8.1GB. New motherboards
are pricy for laptops.

~~~
wtallis
That doesn't matter. If you can be bothered to count megabytes of RAM, you
already have a shortage, with or without Google Drive (or Dropbox, for that
matter).

------
donniezazen
Drive was never an option as a Linux user.

------
d23
For our company it was the lack of the ability to selectively sync sub-
folders. We would have to download 80 GB just to have a few photoshop files
for a particular client synced between us while we worked on projects.
Completely unusable.

~~~
est
Perhaps use symbolic links?

------
AdamGibbins
I just moved to AeroFS, no regrets.

~~~
goronbjorn
How did you get an invite? I've been on the waitlist for well over a year
without any updates from them.

~~~
Cyril-Boh
I have 2 invites. I'll send you one if you want.

The other invite is also available to whoever else wants it.

~~~
goronbjorn
Yes, please send it to me! Thanks a ton. seanandrewroseATgmailDOTcom

~~~
Cyril-Boh
Sent

------
dennisgorelik
I tried using Google Drive for daily database backups (~10 GB * 2 files). \-
It failed miserably - could backup these files only occasionally. \- Quickly
filled out my 100GB quota, even when I deleted old version.

Dropbox worked like a charm: reliable and much less expensive, considering
that size of history files does not count (with special ~$3/month addition).

I looks like Google allocated mediocre product managers for creating G-drive.

------
flamingo157
Very true..same here...Dropbox is just awesome, +1 for it's usability!!

I wasted my entire day trying to install 'Google drive' on my Windows 7
machine. It was throwing installation error 1603. What the heck is that!!

I tried many solutions searching web (e.g. giving all permissions to %AppData%
folder, uninstalling all existing google products etc) but all in vain!!
Google...why do you make such creepy s/w?

------
bitcartel
Dropbox bug which results in data loss has not been resolved yet. So far it
appears to have affected both Mac and Linux users.

[http://konklone.com/post/dropbox-bug-can-permanently-lose-
yo...](http://konklone.com/post/dropbox-bug-can-permanently-lose-your-files)

------
Mythbusters
Hmmm you should really try skydrive in that case. Much more reliable and
friendly to use.

------
pacomerh
I'm a bit paranoid with sensitive data, so wuala.com has been great in my
case. You just get a client to access the data and when you upload files they
all get encrypted before going up there.

------
simplexion
I'll only use SpiderOak. I don't want the company I'm uploading personal files
to, to be able to view my files.

~~~
gman99
I use spideroak as well, mainly because of it's flexibility (partner uses same
account, only syncs the necessary folders) and the fact that it's cheap (at
the time I signed up; especially considering many people can use the same
account)

But man, is it slow! (OK, I realise it's encrypting locally, but even
accounting for that it just "feels" clunky compared to the competition)

Also, I can't seem to view pictures using the online account file browser. It
seems to suggest that thumbnails will be visible before downloading, but it
never seems to work :(

Otherwise, it's really good! (I also have a skydrive, GDrive & a dropbox
account that I use for quick sharing, save game backups, etc -- They've all
got their strengths)

------
mslot
Losing my files in Google Drive is what made me decide to get a paid Dropbox
account.

