I have a large web app which currently stores all user data on my own server (with the usual precautions to deal with security, backups etc). I have recently tested out an alternative – all user data would go into the Dropbox/Apps folder to which the user would provide a token to use via the Dropbox API. This helps in a number of different ways but most important of all – it returns full ownership of the user's data to the right person:the user.
I have the technical solution to this worked out. No issues there. What concerns me is this: from what I understand Dropbox stores user data on servers in the US (America) and Ireland (Europe). This introduces a small degree of latency (small because I fetch their data once and cache it for a while). But where does this leave the rest of the world? A user in, say, Sydney or Bangalore, would have their data being fetched from the US even though they are being serviced by, say, my geolocated app server which is based in Singapore?
Best Answer
Honestly using Dropbox as a repository for your application is probably a bad idea for the following reasons
a) It's a consumer product that was designed for consumer usage b) As you've determined you have no idea where the data is stored, so latency will be an issue c) You'll end up paying MUCH more than other cloud storage solutions like Amazon
I would seriously consider using Amazon S3, you'll be able to choose which geographic areas your data is stored in, it's made for developers and it's going to be cheaper and faster latency wise