Quote:
Originally Posted by eschwartz
It will only be deleted if you delete it yourself from the web interface, or from a computer that is synced.
Copy.com/Dropbox are syncing products, not backup products. If you delete something, they will delete the synced copy.
Dropbox offers a 30-day history of all your files, which can be used to restore deleted files (as well as to revert to an older version of a file). If you pay for extra storage they will keep an unlimited history.
You can view those files via their website. Also, there are scripts which access the Dropbox API to do fancier things like restore your whole Dropbox to a specific date (my fork with a shared API key).
Copy.com only allows you to restore deleted files from the desktop client, and I don't know how long you have or what the deal is.
Bottom line, though -- I wouldn't worry about it happening. As far as I am concerned, it will only happen if I am the one doing the deletion, by accident of course.
It isn't their job to protect me from every form of stupidity I can bring upon myself. 
They will protect me if my computer is blown up. They will save me when I lose my computer, or can't access it RIGHT NOW. They will even protect me from my own stupidity if I ask them within 30 days. Good enough for me.
I assume if a file got deleted from your computer, and that change was synced to Copy.com/Dropbox... then the file *should* be in your Trash. All in all, what you are doing is making sure that whatever *might* happen to your files, chances are they will be preserved in at least one place. 
I doubt you will be in the position, for example, where you deleted the files from your computer, AND you synced to Dropbox, AND you didn't notice for 30 days, AND you lost that computer or cleared the Trash (never do this unless you are sure) AND you lost your flash drive backups. |
Thanks for the major dose of sanity. You know, I
was looking at Copy.com as a form of backup. Like, if something goes wrong, it's always in the Copy cloud. But yeah of course if I delete something from a synced file it's going to be deleted on both computers and in the cloud. (And yeah, Copy does have the deleted files in the web browser site.)
The thing is I've got everything from both computers in the synced Copy folder.
And that, for me, is a lot of stuff. (11GB)
Thinking of Deb's comment (the "snapshot" idea), I could save the Copy folder to each computer and then when I work on a file save it on the computer AND then to the Copy folder as well. But that gets dicey too. Say I add a file to the Copy folder on one computer and then (to keep things consistent) I should add the same folder to the other computer (But what are the odds of keeping all that straight?) to keep the files NOT in the Copy folder the same. (With a single computer it makes sense and would be easy.)
I do think it incredibly unlikely that I would delete something important without it being somewhere else.
Maybe I'll keep everything the way I've got it and just come up with a foolproof (LOL) backup system. (Any suggestions?)
Thanks man.