Dropbox Glitch Causes File Deletion

Generally, it is good practice to have more than one backup even if the backup itself is already a second copy of the data. In the case of Dropbox, people use it as the only means of backup found out the hard way recently why this is the case. Dropbox is often used as a means to backup data because it is so convenient due to its transparency. Basically, once it is setup, it creates a folder on your computer called Dropbox. Any files saved into this folder automatically get copied onto the Dropbox server on the Internet. This means there are two copies of the files at all times. If you delete a file, its copy on the server is deleted automatically. When your computer breaks, you can go to another computer and access the same data file on the Dropbox server. If you wish, you can sync these files onto the new computer.

The recent glitch on Dropbox causes data loss. Some files are deleted on both the Dropbox server and because of its sync nature, the mirrored copies are deleted as well. Dropbox normally keeps a copy of deleted files so the user in theory can recover these deleted files. However, the problem is you may not know what files were erroneously deleted so you would not know what to recover on a timely basis before the grace period for recovery expires.

http://www.tomshardware.com/news/dropbox-selective-sync-glitch-cloud-storage-deletion,27872.html

Selective Sync is a Dropbox feature that allows users to select a specific file or folder to be mirrored on the user's local hard drive. For instance, perhaps users take photos on their smartphones, and those images are automatically uploaded to Dropbox. The user may choose not to mirror those images on a local hard drive with limited storage capacity. 

According to Dropbox, the file deletion occurred when the desktop application was shut down or restarted while the user was applying Active Sync settings. The company's email said that the team worked hard to restore those files, indicating that many may not have been rescued from the dark clutches of the trash can.

So what should you do to ensure there is no data loss if you use Dropbox as your only backup? Simple actually. Because you use Dropbox, you already know exactly where the Dropbox data is. It is the Dropbox folder itself. So once in a while, you would simply copy the entire Dropbox folder onto another physical drive. Append to the name of the folder the date of the copying. So the back up folder will have the name of DropboxXX-XX-XXXX where it can be for example, 10-13-14. This will create a folder called Dropbox10-13-14. This way, you will know exactly what is in this backup folder -- all the files stored on Dropbox up until Oct 13, 2014. When the drive that contains these Dropbox folders are full, you can delete the oldest folders based on their names. Easy.