Move Dropbox from ext4 to NTFS partition?

[x-shaney-x]

I'm wanting to move my Dropbox folder from my home folder to my NTFS data partition, preferably without having to re-sync everything.
I tried using the move folder option in Dropbox preferences but I get an error that it cannot move all the files (in fact, it doesn't move any of them).

I am assuming it is a permissions problem but is there any way to do it?

I'm using 12.04 with Dropbox install via the nautilus-dropbox package.

[dcstar]

Non-Linux filesystems cannot be used in many cases because they do not support all the required Linux features.

NTFS is an old Windows filesystem, it is not a Linux filesystem.

[x-shaney-x]

Well yes but I use NTFS for the data partition because it is shared between Windows and Linux installations.
I would rather have a single dropbox that can also be shared between installs too. I don't see the point of having many GB of photos filling up two different partitions.

Aside from that, I recently uploaded several GB of new photos and as well as taking about 3 days to upload, I then had to wait several hours for them to download again in Windows.

[ManamiVixen]

NTFS Partitions are not well supported, if at all in Linux. If the NTFS partition is nothing but storage space, format it to Fat32 which is supported by Linux and Windows.

[fantab]

I'm wanting to move my Dropbox folder from my home folder to my NTFS data partition, preferably without having to re-sync everything.
I tried using the move folder option in Dropbox preferences but I get an error that it cannot move all the files (in fact, it doesn't move any of them).

I am assuming it is a permissions problem but is there any way to do it?

I'm using 12.04 with Dropbox install via the nautilus-dropbox package.

Since we can Read and Write to NTFS from Linux, it is possible (theoritically) to have shared/common Dropbox folder on NTFS that can be updated from both Windows and Ubuntu/Linux.

In /home hit CTRL+H to reveal Hidden dot folders... locate .dropbox and delete it. Open Dropbox and the install Wizard will run asking you to create a dropbox folder, Choose ADVANCE SETUP. Try changing the folder location to NTFS. If in case you are unable to do so, hit Ctrl+L while you have a blinking cursor in the path box. This will open the file manager and you can manually choose the path to partition and folder. Remember this NTFS partition has to mounted for Dropbox from Ubuntu to sync.

If you already have Dropbox folder from Windows in the NTFS partition just choose it.

Let us know if this worked...
Good Luck.

[vanadium]

I would be surprised if it would not work with a much simpler way: a symlink. Replace your Dropbox folder where your synchronized files are with a symlink to the ntfs folder where you want the data.

Stepwise:
1) Move your dropbox folder to the desired location on the ntfs partition
2) Open a second file manager window, in the folder where the dropbox folder originally was.
3) Press Ctrl+Shift and drag the moved dropbox folder to that second file manager. Release the mouse button: a symlink will now be created. The dropbox client will now look into the symlink and through it, see you data on the other partition.

[x-shaney-x]

@ ManamiVixen

I actually switched from fat32 to NTFS for my data partition a couple of years ago for a very specific reason (though I can't actually remember what that is now) and in that time I have not had a single issue using NTFS.

@ fantab

Funnily enough, I tried exactly that earlier today and have spent most of today testing it by copying and removing various files between windows and linux and android.
Everything works perfectly.

This also has the added bonus that when I do fresh installs (such as the upcoming 13.04) I just point it to the new location during install and no need for copying masses of files or waiting for them all to sync after install.

@ vanadium

Tried the symlink method and yes, that also works perfectly.

Thanks all.

[Henque19]

Hi

I have the same problem, but a symlink didn't fix it unfortunately.
Dropbox starts but seems to hang and shows "92 files downloading.." for hours, without finishing. After a while its CPU-usage goes through the roof so I have to kill it.

My fstab settings are: nfts-3g defaults,auto,uid=1000,gid=1000,nodev,locale=en_US .UTF-8,umask=002 0 0

Any idea what I can do to fix it?

Thanks
/Henrik

[CaptainMark]

You should quit the dropbox daemon so your not syncing, then move your dropbox folder and create the symlink then finally startup the dropbox daemon again.
Otherwise it starts deleting and syncing files at the same time as you're moving them around and can all get a bit messy and possibly resulting in lost data

[Henque19]

You should quit the dropbox daemon so your not syncing, then move your dropbox folder and create the symlink then finally startup the dropbox daemon again.
Otherwise it starts deleting and syncing files at the same time as you're moving them around and can all get a bit messy and possibly resulting in lost data

Thanks for the reply. I deleted the symlink and the files in ~/.dropbox to remove all settings and start over. Then I reconfigured Dropbox and when it started downloading files I stopped the daemon ("dropbox stop" right?), deleted the new files, created a symlink to the ntfs partition and started the daemon.

After indexing, it is stuck at "Downloading 89 files...". That is strange since the very same folder is synced in Windows

Is there any way of knowing what files it is trying to download?