The problem is I put my Outlook .pst in my Dropbox folder. When I have Outlook open, which is nearly the entire day, Outlook puts a lock on the .pst file.
Instead of Dropbox ignoring that file and coming back to it later - it's just gets stuck in some kind of infinitely loop trying to synch the locked file and can't. Resulting in 100% CPU usage.
I'm on one of their top plans (2TB). What's the point in having such large plans when the number of files you have causes the whole service to break down?
Been searching for a good alternative to Dropbox. Something that would be CPU efficient, safe, secure and reliable. I also use their packrat plan (saves a history of every file ever), which is nice too.
Any other HN readers have any alternatives? I really just want a plug and play solution, and not have to roll my own.
I don't trust Apple iCloud for one bit as they've been quite inept at running cloud services. I've tried Google drive with poor results too.
I have a single command on alias that goes and checks out all my git projects, and does a bit pull on any existing. Can switch between Computers in like 30 seconds. And it's all free git on bitbucket.
Git is much better way to deal with small files. Dropbox is ok for large files or nontechnical users.
I have about 300K files (250GB total) in my 1TB SpiderOak account. The UI has always been atrociously slow, but backup speeds are okay when most files are static. Things get more interesting when I check out another branch in git and touch a few thousand files at a time. As for sync, well, I've all but given up on editing a file on my desktop, opening my laptop, and expecting the updated file to appear anytime soon. If I really need to sync a file immediately, I put in in my Dropbox (free account, almost empty).
Unfortunately smart sync is only available for business subscriptions (probably because it makes it easy to put more stuff to Dropbox than you have disk space)
What I like most of this VDI setup is that, since it is a thin client setup, my computers last many years without becoming obsolete.
The Outlook .pst file plays notoriously bad with backup and synching in my experience. I set up CrashPlan for a family member once, and when I followed up a few weeks later it hadn't backed anything up in weeks because it was stuck on the .pst. In this case it was because the .pst was so huge and kept changing so frequently. By the time it had been uploaded for off-site backup, then it had changed and CrashPlan would start uploading it again. CrashPlan wasn't smart enough to prioritize other files in between, probably because it puts the most recently changed files in front of the queue or something.
Sounds like he should make a copy to dropbox, if he wants a copy backed up.
Can't backup an open file after all.
This is just how computers work.
He is complaining that their software hangs on open file instead of doing the sensible thing and not using 100% cpu until the lock goes away. That has nothing to do with "how computers work".