http://tidbits.com/ Most people don’t realize that Time Machine backs up their Dropbox folder by default. This is either a nice secondary backup of key information or a waste of precious hard drive space for files that are already being duplicated to the Dropbox Web site. en-us Copyright 2013 TidBITS Publishing Inc. Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 EDT Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:00:00 EDT editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Editors) editors@tidbits.com (TidBITS Editors) http://tidbits.com/images/tb_logo_152x55.png http://tidbits.com/ 55 152 TidBITS badge http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_18157 Sun, 31 Mar 2013 13:01:43 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_18157
And if it does, the next approach would be to restore that information from the Dropbox Web site, since if old bad information has somehow replaced new good information, it will be only a single event for each file, and Dropbox's revision history should be sufficient to restore it.

Regardless, I think the issue we were looking at in this article was the loss of a single file, which could be restored either via Time Machine or via Dropbox. If you're concerned about this possibility of a Time Machine restore overwriting newer Dropbox files, it sounds like excluding your Dropbox folder from Time Machine would be called for, since then the Time Machine restore wouldn't contain those old files and Dropbox would simply bring the restored Mac back to the current state with no fuss.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_18156 Sun, 31 Mar 2013 11:44:00 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_18156
Best solution is to create a mirror folder that is backed up if you're concerned that mirrors your Dropbox folder.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17952 Sun, 17 Mar 2013 11:58:10 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17952 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17938 Sat, 16 Mar 2013 08:56:43 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17938 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17901 Tue, 12 Mar 2013 22:13:58 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17901 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17886 Mon, 11 Mar 2013 16:54:01 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17886
If your TM drive is correctly and sufficiently large the DropBox size shouldn't matter to it although it may well do if you need to add Internet speeds into the mix.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17873 Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:00:33 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17873 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17762 Sun, 24 Feb 2013 15:01:17 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17762 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17754 Sat, 23 Feb 2013 22:23:15 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17754 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17721 Fri, 22 Feb 2013 06:13:50 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17721 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17720 Thu, 21 Feb 2013 23:06:29 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17720
It's not necessary—you can get the data back from Dropbox. Unless...something horrible happens at Dropbox. Dropbox is careful about not losing data, but...suppose for example the FBI got overly aggressive when trying to seize someone else's Dropbox data and its contents. It's happened before at other sites.

At the same time, if you have multiple Macs on the same Dropbox account, letting Time Machine back up the Dropbox folder on only one of them would seem to be enough.

My rule is "one copy is not enough". If you consider all of Dropbox to be one copy, then Dropbox is not enough.

1. My paranoia is showing above. But the machines ARE out to get me.

2. I use Skydrive instead, and I let Time Machine back up the Skydrive folder on one of my Macs.
]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17718 Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:37:00 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17718
And the answer to "Should I have at least one complete backup, even if I have everything backed up, just not in the same place?" is also "Yes."

But despite my glib comment, this is a good article. Thanks.]]> http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17717 Thu, 21 Feb 2013 17:06:05 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17717 http://db.tidbits.com/article/13575?rss#comments_17716 Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:30:26 EDT http://tidbits.com/article/13575#comments_17716