Does Tracktion work well with Dropbox?

[acroyear2]

I usually save my Tracktion projects on an external hard drive. However, I really want to store them on the cloud, and I've been thinking about Dropbox (which I've never used before).
The main reason why I wanna switch to the cloud, instead of storing my files on an external hard drive, is because it just feels more safe.

Before doing this, though, I just wanted to check with you guys; does any of you use Dropbox along with Tracktion? Are you experiencing any problems, or does it work just like it should?

[Kang]

I can't imagine why it wouldn't. I think the term 'bits are bits' may apply here. I don't use dropbox for projects, but I do use my thumb drive to transfer from my PC to my macbook pro and I have been very happy with the success.

Many of my VST3's don't transfer settings, but they didn't in other DAW's either. I assume they store settings somewhere else but haven't investigated since I am fine with VST2.

The other thing is that for the first few times I did these type of transfers I had to find missing files in the edit one by one, which was tedious (never found a good way to just search a directory for this). I also remember doing this in other DAW's. I must have been doing something wrong because it doesn't do that anymore. Now when I have all the .wav files on both computers I just have to transfer the edit file itself and everything has been working great with that. Sorry for the long response that doesn't really answer your question.

[gigazaga]

I can't imagine why it wouldn't. I think the term 'bits are bits' may apply here. I don't use dropbox for projects, but I do use my thumb drive to transfer from my PC to my macbook pro and I have been very happy with the success.

Many of my VST3's don't transfer settings, but they didn't in other DAW's either. I assume they store settings somewhere else but haven't investigated since I am fine with VST2.

The other thing is that for the first few times I did these type of transfers I had to find missing files in the edit one by one, which was tedious (never found a good way to just search a directory for this). I also remember doing this in other DAW's. I must have been doing something wrong because it doesn't do that anymore. Now when I have all the .wav files on both computers I just have to transfer the edit file itself and everything has been working great with that. Sorry for the long response that doesn't really answer your question.

I stored my Tracktion projects folder on Dropbox for a while. It worked fine but if you open the files in two different computers you need to have the plugins installed on both. Also, dropbox is a folder on your main hard drive that gets synced to the cloud. So you need enough space on your main drive for all your files. I generally prefer to keep my music projects on a separate hard drive with more space. That said it was very convenient having it in Dropbox. I use Dropbox constantly for collaboration, but I did move away from using to hold my Tracktion projects.

[aMUSEd]

You can keep your Dropbox folder on an external drive if you want, mine is.

[gigazaga]

You can keep your Dropbox folder on an external drive if you want, mine is.

Right, I know that is possible. Dropbox does not encourage doing that however, so I don't usually recommend it unless you really know what your doing.

[aMUSEd]

I didn't know that, wonder why? I would have thought the last place most people would want a backup to be kept is cluttering up their main drive?

[gigazaga]

I didn't know that, wonder why? I would have thought the last place most people would want a backup to be kept is cluttering up their main drive?

Here is where I read about it:

https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/89

[gigazaga]

And a quote from that link:

For our advanced users

If you want to put your Dropbox folder on an external drive, proceed with caution:

The Dropbox folder must be available when your computer boots and before the Dropbox desktop application starts. Some USB drives, for example, take some time to mount before your computer recognizes them. The Dropbox desktop application could start before such a drive is ready and get confused. You'll receive an error and Dropbox will give you the opportunity to relink your Dropbox account or exit if it is unable to find your Dropbox folder.

If the external drive is disconnected from the computer while Dropbox is running, there's a small chance that the application will start deleting files before realizing that the entire drive has been removed. Again: When it comes to using an external drive for your Dropbox folder, tread carefully.

[aMUSEd]

Thanks - it seems to me that it would not be hard for them to add a failsafe to stop it deleting files if the drive is unmounted or fails. I have a terabyte of Dropbox space, that's twice the size of my internal HD so hosting it on that is simply not an option.

btw maybe Dropbox should pay me a consultancy fee for this but I think I've just discovered that the biggest thing holding back their business model is probably their own short sighted advice lol - I mean most people these days prefer smaller faster SSD drives to large internal drives anyway, do they want to encourage people to buy larger Dropbox accounts or what?

[jabe]

I didn't know that, wonder why? I would have thought the last place most people would want a backup to be kept is cluttering up their main drive?

I thought the backup was the one in the cloud.

[aMUSEd]

As I said, my Dropbox is twice the size of my internal drive so I use it more for mirroring backups, mission critical files and resources across multiple systems.

[chico.co.uk]

Thanks - it seems to me that it would not be hard for them to add a failsafe to stop it deleting files if the drive is unmounted or fails. I have a terabyte of Dropbox space, that's twice the size of my internal HD so hosting it on that is simply not an option.

I know some devs working on a product that's kind of like Dropbox, but with a twist. I'd have to say it's not as simple as you might think to add failsafes that ensure files don't get deleted, on drives that are shared between multiple machines, synced to a cloud service, and may be used by multiple users ...

[chico.co.uk]

That said, Dropbox has file history, so if your stuff does get deleted, you can restore it back to a previous version, if you login to the web interface of Dropbox. Which is nice.

[aMUSEd]

Thanks - it seems to me that it would not be hard for them to add a failsafe to stop it deleting files if the drive is unmounted or fails. I have a terabyte of Dropbox space, that's twice the size of my internal HD so hosting it on that is simply not an option.

I know some devs working on a product that's kind of like Dropbox, but with a twist. I'd have to say it's not as simple as you might think to add failsafes that ensure files don't get deleted, on drives that are shared between multiple machines, synced to a cloud service, and may be used by multiple users ...

Well I don't know, it would be nice to at least be asked if suddenly it detects a load of missing files or a missing drive? "Did you do this on purpose?' sort of thing.

[chico.co.uk]

Thanks - it seems to me that it would not be hard for them to add a failsafe to stop it deleting files if the drive is unmounted or fails. I have a terabyte of Dropbox space, that's twice the size of my internal HD so hosting it on that is simply not an option.

I know some devs working on a product that's kind of like Dropbox, but with a twist. I'd have to say it's not as simple as you might think to add failsafes that ensure files don't get deleted, on drives that are shared between multiple machines, synced to a cloud service, and may be used by multiple users ...

Well I don't know, it would be nice to at least be asked if suddenly it detects a load of missing files or a missing drive? "Did you do this on purpose?' sort of thing.

Yup. I think a lot of the issues the guys I know see are around multiple users accessing shared network locations, and which is supposed to be the "master", the local copy on their laptop (which laptop?) or the network share, or the cloud service, and so on. So maybe not completely analogous to how most people use Dropbox... I just know it's given them a lot more headaches than they expected, across different operating systems and devices, which may not have synced clocks, or the correct date, etc etc