Using Subversion with DropBox

Question

Is it a bad idea to use DropBox as a backup system for Subversion repositories?

Has anyone tried using Subversion with an an online file sharing utility like DropBox? Wh

Answer 1

Not the trivial way...

First idea is always "okay, let's keep the repo on Dropbox and it will do the rest". Nope. This combo will always give you locking problems, just as you expected. I tried because I love svn's simplicity but I ended up moving some of my repos to git, just to make the sync flawless.

Now I'm still not a git fan (after a few years of inevitable use because of my clients' version control choices) so here's a few ideas to not do what I did:

What you can do instead

1. RiouxSVN
   There's a very good (and surprisingly, free) svn hosting service: https://riouxsvn.com/ - it's a no-nonsense way to keep your repos somewhere safe, physically detached from your computer, available anywhere as long as you have a connection. So basically, what I guess you wanted to achieve with DropBox.

2. Post-commit
   You can easily create a post-commit batch that copies your local repository to DropBox. Make it a differential mirror, a built-in tool called robocopy can take care of that for you. This way you'll always have a safe instance in the sky.

3. Distract DropBox sync
   This is merely a dirty trick if nothing else seems to work - a pre-commit hook with a big file copy, to cause a noticeable delay for DropBox and prevent simultaneous opening of the same files svn are working on. Not recommended if you have a better option.