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0 pointsjimmaswell9y ago0 comments

Could this be a consequence of the built in FS APIs coming up short, as Ben put it, and forcing DropBox to do things in less efficient ways to work around the limitations?

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7 comments · 2 top-level

rarepostinlurkr9y ago· 4 in thread

Doesn't Apple literally have a sync solution on this platform, likely using these same APIs? FSEvents powers a lot of core functionality on macOS so it's surprising to hear it just doesn't meet Dropboxes needs.

It's cool they are moving into the kernel soon anyway, just install their kext...

SyneRyder9y ago

Is Apple's sync reliable though? There was an episode of MacBreak Weekly last week where both Adam Engst & Andy Ihnatko urged people not to enable the new Sierra sync system, and talked about instances of data loss caused by Apple's various sync features. The segment begins here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgE1c-YTEpE&t=65m02s

I thought it was common knowledge that Apple's own sync (nevermind the APIs they provide to third parties) was terribly unreliable. Even long-time Mac developers like Panic & Omni developed their own sync services because the Apple ones were so unreliable.

elcritch9y ago

That and what I take to be the iCloud / System Indexing daemon's (like `mdfind`) kill my battery life. The other's reports of poor Dropbox performance baffles me a bit as it never seems to give me issues, but iCloud/Google Drive both have both had big performance penalties on 3 various macs I've tried them on.

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jsjohnst9y ago

I can't fathom why you think them being a kext is a good thing. I refuse to use anything anymore that needs that, every app that needs that inevitably is a source of something breaking in OS X

rarepostinlurkr9y ago

Was complete sarcasm

cma9y ago· 1 in thread

What do they need different from what time machine uses?

tinus_hn9y ago

Time Machine needs to be able to ask which files changed when it is preparing to backup. Dropbox needs to be notified when a file changes so it can sync.

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