We’ve been using it during WFH and mileage varies depending on person. Those of us with gigabit up and down get by pretty easily as even large 150+GB files sync easily overnight. However those with weaker internet plans can’t use it at all basically as it’s just too slow.
What I will say is if you are going to use it make sure to use the OS level version and avoid the browser version. The OS one will just sync everything for you as it arrives and it’s great. The browser version is not only slower to download but in our experience will corrupt files if you let Dropbox zip them so you need to have everything zipped in advance or you need to download every single file individually, it’s messy.
No. Dropbox isn't made for what we do. It's made to backup an office users desktop. It does that great.
Look into [frame.io](https://frame.io). It's made for video work. It handles large files, allows you to choose full resolution downloads or smaller proxies, has a review and approval feature, and doesn't force people who just need to download a file to register. We love it here at Giant Tech Firm^(TM)
I hate dropbox with an extreme, irrational passion. It’s built for sharing pdfs and excel sheets, not 4k video.
The interface is minimalist to the point of bordering on being unusable. Why bother letting us see any information about the file? We don’t need to know that, right?
Also the preview video player is hot garbage and despite telling clients to download, then watch, they just watch the preview and wonder why the colors are washed out and the compression is so high.
Edit: my internet is not great, so that doesn’t help. But I didn’t have any trouble with dropped files on frame io or google drive, just db.
But, its the thing that clients use, so we’re sometimes stuck with it.
ProTip: When sending clients a link, it generates the link and puts a "=0" at the end. If you change that 0 to a 1, it will auto-download when your client clicks the link. Then you skip the chance that they'll watch in the browser which is, as you said, garbage.
We're also using it every day in a corporate enviroment. As being said, it depends on your internet speed. But the best feature for sure is that you can choose what you want to sync and what not. I only have 1TB in my PC and just cycle through projects up and download them whenever I need them.
So yes, if your internet is fast enough then it's a great solution and you don't have to buy hard drives all the time.
On my home setup, I use Dropbox for project files, exports, and transfers. I keep source media that is sent to me on a separate drive. This way I have my projects automatically backed up as I work and can easily send cuts with a link.
As a side note, I hate when videographers send me footage in dropbox links because the two options to download are 'add to your own dropbox' which I don't have much storage in, and the other option is to download it except it tried to zip it first and will fail if the size of the files are too large. Luckily JDownloader2 is able to parse the link and download each file seperately.
I started using Google Drive through 2020 because Google gave my unlimited storage on my business account - I really liked the backup and sync version for Mac, but haven't been a huge fan of the File Stream version since I moved to windows because I don't like that it stores the files in a cache so when you change locations you need to re-download everything, you can't copy and paste the files accross to stop that from happening because of the way it stores the files in cache files. Also if the drive closes then your media disconects which I think is odd.
Have also been using OneDrive with a creative studio and haven't had any major issues with that, a lot like Google Drive but without the cache folder, and the keep offline/online only options work well. OneDrive has some issues with some symbols in file names and long file names (inlcuding deep folder structures being counted in the file name length) so you just have to be accross that. Have worked with multiple people on the same OneDrive and it's worked well there too. Not a huge fan of the way the UI looks when you share a folder with a client though.
As another side note be careful when installing lots of cloud solutions on Windows as the Windows Registry can only dedicate sync icons to a certain amount of cloud apps at once so I ran into an issue where my sync icons weren't working and I needed to figure that out. This happens when you have clients sending you files in every different cloud solution.
Happy to hear everyone's favourites as I'm currently using Google Drive but not 100% sure I'm going to settle.
Google drive drives me insane! My client organized the footage beautifully in multiple folders, but google drive wont download everything as is, I need to download everything one by one, otherwise it zips and puts stuff whenever! I wasted my Sunday with this :(
Try accessing GoogleDrive via [Cyberduck](https://cyberduck.io/) -- it's an open-source FTP client, but works well to access GDrive and can get around the stupid zip file issue. I only recently discovered this method while searching for a workaround for my MacMini M1, since Google still hasn't released an official M1 client that supports FileStream.
*edits: grammar and typos*
Have a look at JDownloader for this as well, it can go through a link and download multiple files and folders structures. I haven't tried on Google Drive but I think it's worth trying out
> ge in, and the other option is to download it except it tried to zip it first and will fail if the size of the files are too large
This will be a giant, *I owe Greenys mac a beer* or a "meh" item.
See the next DB URL you run across? The last item is "=0". Change it to "=1".
I have no idea what the fee structure is, but my company uses frame.io for sharing any files smaller than about 10GB and masv.io for anything bigger. It’s not a long-term storage solution though, and you will need to download files to use them, but you could save some drive space in the meantime at least.
I think in any calculation of cost-per-gigabyte, cloud sharing can't compete with buying hard drives yourself. Of course, cloud sharing has a ton of advantages – they ensure that the data is backed up and give you easy access and sharing wherever you are. But that subscription (Dropbox Professional) only has 3 TB of data – that's not even a full size project in some cases. And you still have to download everything to work on it, right? I don't get how this will save you from buying hard drives...
Like everyone said, I use Dropbox everyday for multiple projects. But if you really need something to sync, you can open up the settings and turn off the data rate limiter that's turned on by default. It'll slow down the rest of your browsing though so I only do this when I need to grab something right then and when I don't mind taking a 10 minute break.
I also recommend Frame.io. If you have money to back it they offer bigger spaces and archival plans for enterprise.
If you have the technical know-how and patience, look into using an AWS S3 and Glacier workflow. During Covid this workflow made our lives easier.
>I would rather not keep buying hard drives
Client buys the drive... its their project and they want to outsource the edit and cloud tech is not 100% reliable (especially on some projects which just NEED to work on THAT day)
Otherwise, get them to pay for the dropbox pro acc, or add it to the invoice (£10 a month?!)
If they have all their media on whatever cloud pro acc they cant expect you to suddenly have a subscription to all 25 of the companies out there. I mean I already have subs to G Drive.. Vimeo.. DB pro.. Wetransfer.. and it pisses me off as its never enough!!
To be honest, I like the more pro corporate ones like Aspera or Signiant. But they cost a lot - for a reason they actually work fast and don't drop out and the apps are super lightweight
Or how about [https://www.lucidlink.com/](https://www.lucidlink.com/) ? That looks good :)
Dropbox is not fun for the person downloading the files unless you already have everything zipped. If they don’t have a paid account with Dropbox, they have to download the files individually for anything larger than 50gb. That’s just not good enough for video related work. Plus, it forces you to “sync” the folder in order to even download it. It’s obviously that it’s more geared towards office work settings than video professional work.
I've used Dropbox, onedrive, Google drive, crushftp, wiredrive, frame io, media silo, media shuttle, hightail, and shift.
I like Onedrive the best because I understand how it works and is fastest YMMV.
Dropbox is more user friendly for non tech savvy people for some reason. Also, it's easier and cheaper to get to thier unlimited business plans without SLA.
Google drive works best for China and other international.
If you are managing projects, then frame/wiredrive/shift are great.
But if pure file transfer point to point - media shuttle and signiant are the best.
I'm just going to throw out Resilio Sync here for file charing. For a small business the licensing costs aren't too bad ($6/user for up to 15 users, $10/user for 20+), and the only limitations are your hardware. If rapid turn-around is your biggest concern then Sync takes the cake because everything is P2P, and there's no "wait for the upload to finish before you can start the download," it's all done in one shot, and you pool the bandwidth between all the nodes.
In some environments, though, it may require altering your firewall rules to get maximum performance, but it's relatively trivial. However if you have an IT team they may balk at it.
I think we need a bit more details:
> not to have to permanently download files.
Yup, you can set at on a per file/folder choice to download. I'd *highly* recommend moving the dropbox folder onto an external HD - with the *warning* that if it's not there, DB gets angry (it warns you - but thinks the files have been removed.)
> Right now I have a couple YouTube clients that send me huge amounts of files, and I would rather not keep buying hard drives.
Define huge? DB is about 3TB on the Pro Plan, and when you go higher it's worse than sending *1TB thumbdrives* and using spinning disks.
The one cool thing is to allow "file receive" folders that are one way trips to your system.
If I have to choose I will use google drive, but if I had the money I'd use [frame.io](https://frame.io) (I just use it free for notes), but I've never had perfect experiences with either of them, which is what we need for storage. It has to be perfect. With both platforms, shit doesn't upload, takes forever to download, organization leaves much to be desired, shit just doesn't work sometimes. It is what it is, but I personally prefer google drive.
Another vote for resilio sync. It allows you to keep folders in sync between clients directly without any cloud storage in-between. No speed or data size limits. I’ve been syncing hundreds of terabytes to a group of over 10 users for over a year at this point and it’s been solid.
We’ve been using it during WFH and mileage varies depending on person. Those of us with gigabit up and down get by pretty easily as even large 150+GB files sync easily overnight. However those with weaker internet plans can’t use it at all basically as it’s just too slow. What I will say is if you are going to use it make sure to use the OS level version and avoid the browser version. The OS one will just sync everything for you as it arrives and it’s great. The browser version is not only slower to download but in our experience will corrupt files if you let Dropbox zip them so you need to have everything zipped in advance or you need to download every single file individually, it’s messy.
Thanks a lot! I will actually try the trial and see how it goes.
No. Dropbox isn't made for what we do. It's made to backup an office users desktop. It does that great. Look into [frame.io](https://frame.io). It's made for video work. It handles large files, allows you to choose full resolution downloads or smaller proxies, has a review and approval feature, and doesn't force people who just need to download a file to register. We love it here at Giant Tech Firm^(TM)
I hate dropbox with an extreme, irrational passion. It’s built for sharing pdfs and excel sheets, not 4k video. The interface is minimalist to the point of bordering on being unusable. Why bother letting us see any information about the file? We don’t need to know that, right? Also the preview video player is hot garbage and despite telling clients to download, then watch, they just watch the preview and wonder why the colors are washed out and the compression is so high. Edit: my internet is not great, so that doesn’t help. But I didn’t have any trouble with dropped files on frame io or google drive, just db. But, its the thing that clients use, so we’re sometimes stuck with it.
ProTip: When sending clients a link, it generates the link and puts a "=0" at the end. If you change that 0 to a 1, it will auto-download when your client clicks the link. Then you skip the chance that they'll watch in the browser which is, as you said, garbage.
We're also using it every day in a corporate enviroment. As being said, it depends on your internet speed. But the best feature for sure is that you can choose what you want to sync and what not. I only have 1TB in my PC and just cycle through projects up and download them whenever I need them. So yes, if your internet is fast enough then it's a great solution and you don't have to buy hard drives all the time.
On my home setup, I use Dropbox for project files, exports, and transfers. I keep source media that is sent to me on a separate drive. This way I have my projects automatically backed up as I work and can easily send cuts with a link.
As a side note, I hate when videographers send me footage in dropbox links because the two options to download are 'add to your own dropbox' which I don't have much storage in, and the other option is to download it except it tried to zip it first and will fail if the size of the files are too large. Luckily JDownloader2 is able to parse the link and download each file seperately. I started using Google Drive through 2020 because Google gave my unlimited storage on my business account - I really liked the backup and sync version for Mac, but haven't been a huge fan of the File Stream version since I moved to windows because I don't like that it stores the files in a cache so when you change locations you need to re-download everything, you can't copy and paste the files accross to stop that from happening because of the way it stores the files in cache files. Also if the drive closes then your media disconects which I think is odd. Have also been using OneDrive with a creative studio and haven't had any major issues with that, a lot like Google Drive but without the cache folder, and the keep offline/online only options work well. OneDrive has some issues with some symbols in file names and long file names (inlcuding deep folder structures being counted in the file name length) so you just have to be accross that. Have worked with multiple people on the same OneDrive and it's worked well there too. Not a huge fan of the way the UI looks when you share a folder with a client though. As another side note be careful when installing lots of cloud solutions on Windows as the Windows Registry can only dedicate sync icons to a certain amount of cloud apps at once so I ran into an issue where my sync icons weren't working and I needed to figure that out. This happens when you have clients sending you files in every different cloud solution. Happy to hear everyone's favourites as I'm currently using Google Drive but not 100% sure I'm going to settle.
Google drive drives me insane! My client organized the footage beautifully in multiple folders, but google drive wont download everything as is, I need to download everything one by one, otherwise it zips and puts stuff whenever! I wasted my Sunday with this :(
Try accessing GoogleDrive via [Cyberduck](https://cyberduck.io/) -- it's an open-source FTP client, but works well to access GDrive and can get around the stupid zip file issue. I only recently discovered this method while searching for a workaround for my MacMini M1, since Google still hasn't released an official M1 client that supports FileStream. *edits: grammar and typos*
Yes. I was going to suggest Cyberduck or Rclone.
Have a look at JDownloader for this as well, it can go through a link and download multiple files and folders structures. I haven't tried on Google Drive but I think it's worth trying out
If you use one of the Google Drive desktop apps it'll download without the zips, extra folders, and without changing the file names.
> ge in, and the other option is to download it except it tried to zip it first and will fail if the size of the files are too large This will be a giant, *I owe Greenys mac a beer* or a "meh" item. See the next DB URL you run across? The last item is "=0". Change it to "=1".
I have no idea what the fee structure is, but my company uses frame.io for sharing any files smaller than about 10GB and masv.io for anything bigger. It’s not a long-term storage solution though, and you will need to download files to use them, but you could save some drive space in the meantime at least.
Stear clear of Dropbox. As someone who downloads video files with a standard account, it’s basically unusable.
Dropbox throttles like crazy and is not designed for large file exchanges. what you need is frame.io or Lucidlink. Worst case, ResilioSync
I think in any calculation of cost-per-gigabyte, cloud sharing can't compete with buying hard drives yourself. Of course, cloud sharing has a ton of advantages – they ensure that the data is backed up and give you easy access and sharing wherever you are. But that subscription (Dropbox Professional) only has 3 TB of data – that's not even a full size project in some cases. And you still have to download everything to work on it, right? I don't get how this will save you from buying hard drives...
Dropbox business is completely unlimited storage space.
Dropbox is a nightmare to share large files on with people without professionals accounts.
Like everyone said, I use Dropbox everyday for multiple projects. But if you really need something to sync, you can open up the settings and turn off the data rate limiter that's turned on by default. It'll slow down the rest of your browsing though so I only do this when I need to grab something right then and when I don't mind taking a 10 minute break.
I also recommend Frame.io. If you have money to back it they offer bigger spaces and archival plans for enterprise. If you have the technical know-how and patience, look into using an AWS S3 and Glacier workflow. During Covid this workflow made our lives easier.
[удалено]
Big fan of Massive. Fast and simple.
I like Frame.io
>I would rather not keep buying hard drives Client buys the drive... its their project and they want to outsource the edit and cloud tech is not 100% reliable (especially on some projects which just NEED to work on THAT day) Otherwise, get them to pay for the dropbox pro acc, or add it to the invoice (£10 a month?!) If they have all their media on whatever cloud pro acc they cant expect you to suddenly have a subscription to all 25 of the companies out there. I mean I already have subs to G Drive.. Vimeo.. DB pro.. Wetransfer.. and it pisses me off as its never enough!! To be honest, I like the more pro corporate ones like Aspera or Signiant. But they cost a lot - for a reason they actually work fast and don't drop out and the apps are super lightweight Or how about [https://www.lucidlink.com/](https://www.lucidlink.com/) ? That looks good :)
Dropbox is not fun for the person downloading the files unless you already have everything zipped. If they don’t have a paid account with Dropbox, they have to download the files individually for anything larger than 50gb. That’s just not good enough for video related work. Plus, it forces you to “sync” the folder in order to even download it. It’s obviously that it’s more geared towards office work settings than video professional work.
Try google drive instead. My company used it and it’s really fast
I've used Dropbox, onedrive, Google drive, crushftp, wiredrive, frame io, media silo, media shuttle, hightail, and shift. I like Onedrive the best because I understand how it works and is fastest YMMV. Dropbox is more user friendly for non tech savvy people for some reason. Also, it's easier and cheaper to get to thier unlimited business plans without SLA. Google drive works best for China and other international. If you are managing projects, then frame/wiredrive/shift are great. But if pure file transfer point to point - media shuttle and signiant are the best.
Under no circumstance is OneDrive the best! I guess different strokes, but it's just terrible for me.
I'm just going to throw out Resilio Sync here for file charing. For a small business the licensing costs aren't too bad ($6/user for up to 15 users, $10/user for 20+), and the only limitations are your hardware. If rapid turn-around is your biggest concern then Sync takes the cake because everything is P2P, and there's no "wait for the upload to finish before you can start the download," it's all done in one shot, and you pool the bandwidth between all the nodes. In some environments, though, it may require altering your firewall rules to get maximum performance, but it's relatively trivial. However if you have an IT team they may balk at it.
I think we need a bit more details: > not to have to permanently download files. Yup, you can set at on a per file/folder choice to download. I'd *highly* recommend moving the dropbox folder onto an external HD - with the *warning* that if it's not there, DB gets angry (it warns you - but thinks the files have been removed.) > Right now I have a couple YouTube clients that send me huge amounts of files, and I would rather not keep buying hard drives. Define huge? DB is about 3TB on the Pro Plan, and when you go higher it's worse than sending *1TB thumbdrives* and using spinning disks. The one cool thing is to allow "file receive" folders that are one way trips to your system.
I got 150GB project right now. It is pretty huge for me :D but probably not for you.
frame.io for the win
If I have to choose I will use google drive, but if I had the money I'd use [frame.io](https://frame.io) (I just use it free for notes), but I've never had perfect experiences with either of them, which is what we need for storage. It has to be perfect. With both platforms, shit doesn't upload, takes forever to download, organization leaves much to be desired, shit just doesn't work sometimes. It is what it is, but I personally prefer google drive.
Another vote for resilio sync. It allows you to keep folders in sync between clients directly without any cloud storage in-between. No speed or data size limits. I’ve been syncing hundreds of terabytes to a group of over 10 users for over a year at this point and it’s been solid.