---
title: "Once more on Dropbox, a superb service for storing and syncing files"
author: "Stan Voo"
url: https://www.99rabbits.com/blog/dropbox-for-storing-and-syncing-files
published: 2011-02-08
summary: "Still mailing files to yourself between home and office? What Dropbox did for me in 2011, how to squeeze more free space out of it, and what wasn't perfect."
---

# Once more on Dropbox, a superb service for storing and syncing files

Still using file-sharing sites to send files that won't fit in an email? Then [Dropbox](http://db.tt/x4wcMrF) is coming to you!

Dropbox is a service for storing files and syncing them between several computers. That is, it's a service plus a special program that creates a folder of the same name on your computer and makes sure everything you put there is neatly copied to the Dropbox server. 2 GB of space free, more for not much money.

You can learn more about the service by... googling it :)

And here's something useful from me:

- You can choose where the Dropbox folder lives. I put mine on the desktop.
- You can choose to sync only some folders.

So on my work computer, which other employees use besides me, Dropbox "sees" only the folders they need. "For the office", for example.

**How to get more free space in Dropbox:**

- like me, share your [referral link](http://db.tt/x4wcMrF) and get +250 MB of free space for each new user;
- connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts, plug the service through them and get +640 MB: [https://www.dropbox.com/free](https://www.dropbox.com/free)
- you could also complete the [developers' quest](http://blog.dropbox.com/?p=659) and get +1 GB or more, depending on your puzzle-solving skills. The quest is closed now, but there'll surely be more;
- or you can just buy it: 50 GB for $10 a month.

**I use Dropbox to store:**

1. backups of important files;
2. documents I need both at home and at work that aren't text documents or spreadsheets (there's Google Docs for those);
3. a set of software to install straight away on a freshly installed operating system;
4. photos and pictures for posting on social networks and various sites, in the "public" folder.

By the way, about the public folder. If you blog and need somewhere to upload illustrations for your posts, the public folder in Dropbox is just the thing. Just don't forget that if you delete a file from it, the link in your blog stops working too.

You can also launch torrents remotely: ["Working with µTorrent remotely via Dropbox"](http://ostrozub.com/2011/01/udalennaya-rabota-s-%c2%b5torrent-cheres-dropbox/). Though I can hardly imagine who'd need that.

**Dropbox's downsides.** I don't see any real downsides, which is why I'm so pleased with the service. A few things aren't ideal:

1. It eats about 45,000 KB of RAM. On my feeble work computer you can feel it a little. Though I think it's no problem for most modern computers.
2. The download speed isn't very high. Yesterday, for example, I waited quite a while for my 320 MB folder to download. I mean downloading through the web interface: when Dropbox is installed, it syncs in the background, of course, and there's no problem.

In short: **Dropbox will save you heaps of time** that usually goes on sending files between your different computers, and will help **protect important files**, even in a natural disaster. Enjoy.