Dropbox vs. TrueNAS

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Dropbox
Score 8.5 out of 10
N/A
Dropbox is a cloud storage solution, equipped with features that help users to save time, improve productivity, and collaborate with others. Users can edit PDFs, share videos, sign documents, and collaborate with stakeholders without leaving Dropbox.
$9.99
per month
TrueNAS
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
TrueNAS is a network-attached storage featuring all-flash and hybrid storage editions, from iXsystems headquartered in San Jose.
$0
per month
Pricing
DropboxTrueNAS
Editions & Modules
Plus
$9.99
per month
Essentials
$18
per month
Business
$20
per month per user
Business Plus
$26
per month per user
Basic
Free
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
DropboxTrueNAS
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
DropboxTrueNAS
Considered Both Products
Dropbox

No answer on this topic

TrueNAS
Chose TrueNAS
I chose TrueNAS (upgrading from FreeNAS) because of the small footprint, ease of use, and reliability of the ZFS file system. The file sharing protocols supported as well as the intuitive interface all make TrueNAS a great choice for business and hobbyists alike.
Chose TrueNAS
Our TrueNAS server came with much more performance for the price, and a great community for support.
Features
DropboxTrueNAS
File Sharing & Management
Comparison of File Sharing & Management features of Product A and Product B
Dropbox
7.8
1316 Ratings
7% below category average
TrueNAS
-
Ratings
Versioning7.91091 Ratings00 Ratings
Video files7.61073 Ratings00 Ratings
Audio files7.9971 Ratings00 Ratings
Document collaboration7.21145 Ratings00 Ratings
Access control8.21215 Ratings00 Ratings
File search8.01261 Ratings00 Ratings
Device sync8.31213 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud Storage Security & Administration
Comparison of Cloud Storage Security & Administration features of Product A and Product B
Dropbox
8.1
1246 Ratings
6% below category average
TrueNAS
-
Ratings
User and role management8.01111 Ratings00 Ratings
File organization8.21227 Ratings00 Ratings
Device management8.01092 Ratings00 Ratings
Cloud Storage Platform
Comparison of Cloud Storage Platform features of Product A and Product B
Dropbox
8.1
1236 Ratings
6% below category average
TrueNAS
-
Ratings
Performance8.11225 Ratings00 Ratings
Reliability8.51232 Ratings00 Ratings
Storage Reports7.6937 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
DropboxTrueNAS
Small Businesses
SugarSync
SugarSync
Score 4.4 out of 10
DiskStation
DiskStation
Score 8.8 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Druva Security Cloud
Druva Security Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Score 10.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Druva Security Cloud
Druva Security Cloud
Score 9.6 out of 10
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Dell Unity XT Unified Storage
Score 10.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
DropboxTrueNAS
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(1341 ratings)
9.7
(39 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.9
(41 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.1
(496 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
7.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
6.1
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.7
(38 ratings)
7.3
(1 ratings)
Online Training
8.2
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.7
(4 ratings)
8.2
(1 ratings)
Configurability
6.4
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
6.7
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
DropboxTrueNAS
Likelihood to Recommend
Dropbox
It has been great for my real estate business as I have many files and need to keep them for a minimum of 5 years. I use it for business and personal files to stay organized. I don't care to use it for photo storage as I feel that it takes up too much space, and I prefer to keep them separate.
Read full review
iXsystems
We have many TrueNAS units deployed and they've served us well everywhere. Our most common use case is using it as storage backing for virtual machines. We have Proxmox talking to it, as well as having it acting as the hypervisor. We've never lost data with it, even when faced with multiple disk failures. We've also always found the performance to be robust and able to handle the needs of our clients. Our clients range from libraries, to medium sized enterprises and we've always been able to make it work, and work reliably.
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Pros
Dropbox
  • I can share projects I need feedback on.
  • I can make projects available to editors so that they can do their work.
  • Dropbox is a place where I can store files that I can access from anywhere, even if I don't have my laptop with me at the time.
  • I have an old friend who is an acting professor in Tokyo. He loves the dialogue that I write in my novels. He converts chapters into scenework for his acting students. They get very excited when there's new material!
Read full review
iXsystems
  • iSCSI Datastores for virtualization.
  • NFS store for unix storage or backups over networking.
  • Very fast performance, sometimes outclassing SSD arrays even in NFS.
  • The ZFS filesystem has given use much greater flexibility.
  • Using their newer servers we could in theory scale to any height of required storage.
Read full review
Cons
Dropbox
  • I’d like to be able to hover over an image/document and have it expand/enlarge without actually opening it
  • I’d love to see a carousel that lets me thumb through more quickly
  • I’m almost always in thumbnail view. I’d like to see them re-organize automatically when something is moved or deleted instead of leaving an empty space.
  • AI options for photo editing.
  • Easier pdf markups
Read full review
iXsystems
  • more graphical interface to admin features like plugins, jails, list are well but a tiles aproach will be better
  • allow bulk upload/download/update to Groups or user accounts from SMB shares.
  • some script language template featured to create/config/change/delete storage pools /dataset or shares .
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Dropbox
Dropbox is a user-friendly, easy tool which requires little to no skill and they offer a free version with a good amount of storage available. There are other file sharing tools available however at a cost. Dropbox free version I have used for years and it serves every purpose I need.
Read full review
iXsystems
The software has been amazing. It has saved me a lot of headache in the past few years. Also, it's nice to knowing that if any of our current Synology devices were to die I can have an iSCSI system up and running very shortly. I didn't give a 10 score because I find their support to be rather slow and pedantic. They test many things when the answer is right in front of them. The compute sytem (not storage) we purchased from them came with pcie gen4 nvme's. They didn't work, but rather than believe me about the spec's in the motherboard manual saying the onboard was pcie3 ONLY they shipped me 2 replacements until I showed them an old pcie3 device worked just fine. The part that rather frustrated me was the machine was claimed to have been tested / burnt in. How can this be true if the server won't even boot up into the BIOS?
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Usability
Dropbox
It works extremely well, and we have never had any issues with connecting or sharing files. It's very easy to use, and any team member can share, add, and delete files to a virtual drive. This is extremely helpful, and it's an amazing tool to use, ensuring everyone can connect and work together effectively.
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iXsystems
The software is fairly straight forward and if you mess up the network interfaces you can login locally at the console and fix any issues that you may have had with VLANS etc denying you network access. There was a little bit of annoying issues when setting up multiple network interface cards. Rather than keeping one interface setup with DHCP, when you add a second one with a new network it disables the first. Which makes it impossible to login again. However if you wait it will revert. I learned after works that you need to set up the network cards and then go back and setup the first one again and THEN test / apply. After that it was pretty good. The summary of the devices is very nice to. You get an accurate snapshot of how well your system is doing as soon as you login
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Performance
Dropbox
Dropbox is really useful, you can access any file from anywhere and you can upload and even edit files online, but, sometimes it can be slow. Downloading, uploading, and syncing is a bit slow, it can take several minutes. Furthermore, the search engine for large amounts of data can be slow too and it is not powerful.
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iXsystems
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Dropbox
They immediately responded like in an example that I gave where one of our staff members accidentally deleted the whole Special Hope Network Dropbox, we immediately contacted Dropbox they walked us through the steps of how to retrieve the information and luckily enough we were able to retrieve the entire Dropbox and we have had back and forth with Dropbox on what to do when an employee leaves how to remove them how to add another employee.
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iXsystems
The support was responsive for opening cases. However I found solutions to simple problems took far too long. When we had a bad power supply and we had another with the exact same firmware version they should have sent replacement for both. We had to file another case for the other PSU that started dyeing the same week. They also had to do a lot of troubleshooting to replace the fans that were not behaving as they should. I'm not a home user. I know when certain things are failing and the silly hoops the jump through made it frustrating. However, once we finally got the problem identified we had parts shipped out via advance replacement which was nice.
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Online Training
Dropbox
I did not personally take any training for Dropbox so I am self taught but I know when our Vice President selected Dropbox, he personally did do some training modules on it and I'm assuming it was very easy and simple to understand since he now acts like he is a pro at it!
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iXsystems
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Dropbox
I needed to stay current in improving my daily operations. Dropbox
was suggested to me by a former colleague two-years ago and I've been using it just fine ever since.
Read full review
iXsystems
The implementation went well after we got the boot drive working properly. The device was setup exactly as i asked with the hardware except for the boot drive. The reason I chose 9 instead of 10 was the boot drive put us back about a week for the part to arrive. I ended up using a personal drive to show them that they were wrong sending use the gen4 drives.
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Alternatives Considered
Dropbox
For me, Dropbox is so much easier to use than Google Drive. I have both because I have a client who relies on me using Google, but each time I upload something, it gets lost in translation, and the document does not appear the same in Google. Frustrating. Love Dropbox!
Read full review
iXsystems
I chose TrueNAS (upgrading from FreeNAS) because of the small footprint, ease of use, and reliability of the ZFS file system. The file sharing protocols supported as well as the intuitive interface all make TrueNAS a great choice for business and hobbyists alike.
Read full review
Scalability
Dropbox
bc i think box.com is better and more affordable
Read full review
iXsystems
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Dropbox
  • When it works (usually if a client already has Dropbox, so they don't get the solicitation to sign up), it works flawlessly.
  • I've had multiple clients not see the "continue with download only" at the bottom and email me to resend the media another way because they don't have a Dropbox account.
Read full review
iXsystems
  • Using a TruNAS integrated solution has reduced support overhead compared to using custom hardware.
  • Being cheaper than full flash storage arrays, this unit allows for a good balance of speed with its use of SSD-based caching drives.
  • The reliability of the hardware/software integration means I spend less time troubleshooting and more time doing business. Coming from a custom-built solution it is apparent that IX Systems has done some extensive testing.
Read full review
ScreenShots

Dropbox Screenshots

Screenshot of the action bar, that sits across the browser page can be used to record the screen, edit PDFs, upload files, create folders, get signatures, or send and track documents.Screenshot of Dropbox Replay, that lets collaborators leave frame-accurate feedback and markups directly on project files.Screenshot of Dropbox Capture, which can be used to take screen recordings, screenshots, and GIFs with one click and share them with a link.Screenshot of the interface where Dropbox lets users upload, edit, send, and sign PDFs in one place.