Networking & wireless forum: How can I share data files with someone in a different location?

A group of co-workers on a project share all our information using Dropbox. We each have a connection to dropbox on our computers, tablets or phones. We all save anything related to our group project into the shared dropbox and then everyone else can access it. It seems to work well. And I know of other groups who also use it. There are other similar programs/aps whatever we call them these days - but this is the main one I have worked with.

My understanding files are encrypted during transmission with dropbox - though of course not encrypted to the user when logged in. For me dropbox is the ideal solution which in addtion to syncing copies of the files stored at both locations (the files are in each dropbox folder on the computer as well as in the dropbox folder online.

1) You access files normally on each computer because that is where they are so apart from when they are actually updating you load them as quickly as any other file
2) You can access files even if your internet connection is down, they will synchronise when you re-connect
3) You can also copy files to a public folder in dropbox (this doesnt mean the world can just find them) it is a public sharing folder so if you have a large client presentation say, you can keep this in the public folder and any time you want to send it to a client you can instead send a link to the specific document in dropbox - this gets around the problems of some clients not receiving attachments
4) If you happen to be elswhere, at a client or on holiday, you can access your files from any computer with an internet connection without having to lug your laptop around
5) You can also use apps for both Android and iOS to access the same files, or upload new files, from your mobile or tablet device

I have used dropbox since it first came out and apart from one well publicised security issue (which has now been fixed) it has been 100% reliable for me and easier to use than any other file sharing method I have tried.

Some mention google docs - hmm OK if you want to use the google software rather than your own but I prefer to do my editing off the cloud.

Remember this is for a business. If he has CUSTOMER data, you would not want to share that on a dropbox account, especially if the data is customer medical records.

Be aware that dropbox has tons of bugs which means you need to back up all your files somewhere else as they may disappear off of dropbox without one of the users deleting them. Also, sharing can suddenly be removed, meaning you can no longer share files and have to go reset the settings (which can cause it's own problems). Since the documentation is very poor, support is very slow and takes a quick look and sends out a standard reply (often missing what really happened/is going on) and there are tons of problems being reported in the forum so good luck searching through them to get an answer or getting your problem replied to, it will take you a lot of time to resolve the issue.

But if you want a free product, that you can share files to (not caring if you have to put in extra time when it doesn't work) and you keep copies of all files somewhere secure, then dropbox is useful.

We had a problem, checked their forum and found tons of people with problems.
The software is created so that if one person deletes or changes a file, dropbox does the same thing on all locations. But many people report that files were deleted when they didn't do any delete. At times dropbox support said they found an event that showed someone deleted the files, but about 25% of the time the answer was yes the file was deleted and we didn't see [an event that indicated] anyone delete the file.
So make sure everything is backed up, do no rely on dropbox to backup the files for you.

The problem we had was sharing all of a sudden stopped. We didn't know why. In debugging the problem (dropbox replies quickly with standard simple answers, but it takes them 24 hours or much longer to respond when they can't spit out on of the simple answers that might have caused your problem. Note the simple answers do not necessarily apply to your situation, just standard ones they have available - like someone must have deleted the file, go look at the events to see if someone deleted the file.
There was no event saying anyone had unshared the folder. We were doing our own debugging while waiting for dropbox, and found there was sharing issues. Each user's webpage for dropbox showed files that matched their computer, but the two webpages didn't show the same list of files. We noticed that sharing had stopped. There was a rejoin button, so we clicked it. But instead of restarting the sharing, it created a new copy of the files and synced it to the other account. Now we had a bigger problem, two sets of files that didn't match and oh, we now exceeded our dropbox account size (which the dropbox support person nicely pointed out was a way that sharing stopped, rather than checking the events to see that sharing had stopped before we tried a rejoin).

End note - back everything, don't trust that dropbox is really doing sharing or keeping your files.
From what I saw, about 3/4 of the problems people listed in dropbox were from people who had not set it up correctly (e.g. their antivirus was stopping dropbox from working), but about 1/4 of the problems with deleted files and sharing problems were dropbox bugs.

Bob, you say:
"When I don't have dropbox running I still have my synced files on my machine"
The problem is dropbox runs when your computer is running, the "synced" files change on their own, so when anyone at any synced location changes a file/deletes a file, the ones on your computer change also.

You also said "Also, if someone deletes the files, these are not deleted from my machine until I give the OK!"

So where is the documentation about that feature (and one that says you don't accept any file changes anyone else did without you oking them - same issue)? That goes against the purpose of dropbox, to automatically keep everything in sync. As I said, their standard help documentation is sparse and I saw no mention of this "feature".

I used to "love" dropbox and tell everyone about it, until we ran into these problems and I started reading the forums and seeing all the people having problems with files "disappearing" and syncing not working and while debugging learning how dropbox was really written to work.

When you delete a file it asks do you really want to delete the file.
This is NOT what I am talking about.

The problem is counting on the files being there as you are a business and need to share files with different computers (different people sharing them or having them there when you go to another location).

Other users are finding:
The files are deleting and therefore not available to them when they need them (and to avoid this they have to back them up on both locations often - daily, as soon as they get them, etc.).
Dropbox stops sharing - and the feature of dropbox (have two or more locations being able to see them) is not longer there. So you are back to emailing pictures to each other or having to wait till you get to other computer - e.g. Dropbox is not functional.

This does not happen all the time, took us 3-4 months of heavy useage before we ran into the problem.

I am trying to warn people don't Count on Dropbox working, there are a lot of bugs.
Yes it is useful but don't count on it working.
Spend time backing up daily (or more often) so you have the files at both sides (vs counting on dropbox working).
Have a backup plan with Dropbox stops working and don't expect Dropbox to be able to resolve the issues at all let alone in a timely manner.

I am bowing out of this conversation, the business users that want to count on dropbox understand fully what I am saying, as I said they can easily verify what I said by checking the dropbox forum.

Waytron - as I said, 3/4 looks like user caused (e.g. software setup on their computer like antivirus stops dropbox) 1/4 is dropbox bugs. And the lack of customer support is the same for paid accounts and non paid accounts, though they seem to come back quicker with the paid accounts (but still the problems don't get solved unless it is something simple like turn off your antivirus). We considered going up to paid version, but are taking another paid product instead because of the problems dropbox has.

Now, to make sure I don't get any more emails when people respond to this post.....

http://forums.cnet.com/7723-10150_102-565850/what-is-the-easiest-way-to-manage-and-monitor-files/?messageId=5324651

Your needs seem to call out the old school solution as well.

Hope this gives you something to ponder.

As to dropbox. If it doesn't work for you, why bother with it or even discussing it?
Bob

Well your reply said it all. The feature you said that prevented others from deleting a file from a shared dropbox folder - you could not provide any documentation about this feature. Never seen it, and as I pointed out it does not fit with the purpose of dropbox.

Yeah, I used dropbox also as a business, for about 4 months, until we ran into a dropbox bug which led to other bug and I read the forum to see all the problems there.

I suggest for anyone to look at the dropbox forum user sight to see what users are reporting as problems. Note, there is no way to see the number of problems they reported directly to dropbox.
A lot of problem reported every hour when I checked, problems with no syncing and even worse deleted files.

Dropbox support is virtually non existent, so of little help when you run into a problem and no way to contact them except online (no chat no phone calls)

Use Dropbox at your own risk, being aware of the problems it has.

It always surprises me when people complain about not being able to talk to technical support when they are having problems with a product that is being supplied to them for FREE. What do you expect? Just try talking to someone about problems with free accounts such as gmail, AOL, Yahoo or AVG. Does that mean that all of these services are no good? If you need or want phone technical support you have to belly up and pay for it. I have had no problem talking to technical support for clients that are paying for DropBox for Teams.

one word. dropbox. the first 2GB are free. https://www.dropbox.com

I do not know how to set it up but I do know that your computer can be set to accept networked computers.
Maybe some of the tech people can explain better and how.

If your partner is also using windows 7 it is pretty easy. There are tutorials in 7 for this. Basically you just go into "control panel", select Network and Sharing, and just set up a homegroup/workgroup, create a password for both of you, give permission to "share" the folders he needs or even pretty much the whole hard drive and so long as your work pc is on, he can get into anything he needs so long as the work pc is turned on. It can go two-way as well if you need to get into something on his pc. I don't even think he needs to bring his pc in to work although it might make the initial setup easier.

But both computers have to be on at the same time that way. Ditto for using Windows 7 and sharing through a workgroup. That really limits things and takes away a lot of the flexibility.

Unless I'm running some long process - which is infrequent. The way I do things my data is backed up immediately after I generate it - to my NAS .... which of course is always on. With progressive electric rates here - its too costly to leave a PC on - the NAS uses far less power. PC also runs hotter - fire hazard.

There are two modes of "rough service" for a computer - frequent on and off and on 24/7. Do the math - even if you are a very heavy computer user you are only using 1/3 to 1/2 of its life if its always on (1/4 in a work environment - 5 out of 21 shifts per week). As a result I've had few if any machine failures - they run for YEARS and YEARS - well into obsolescence - which is usually the reason I upgrade or get a new one. This is how I've been using my PC's since 1980.

Mine go on when/if I need them - and off at the end of my day.

It WOULD be nice if Team Viewer would employ Wake on LAN - but at least it will wake the computer from sleep mode.

There are a number of ways to do this out there including Google Docs and Drop Box and I use "4Shared Desktop" ( www.4shared.com/desktop/ ) which similar to Dropbox has automatically updated on line storage as well as a folder on each PC which can hold files common to both PC's. The files are always up to date no matter which PC makes changes. They also have a free amount of on line storage.