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Maximum download and upload speeds
I'm setting up a new computer and syncing my dropbox business account to it. The internet connection is great on fiber optic cable (1500MB/s) but my download speeds on dropbox are about 24MB/sec
What is the maximum anyone else is getting?
How can I improve this?
That won't do you any good. There are so many things that affect speed that you could have two people with an identical setup and still have wildly different speeds. Your computer, your local network, your ISP, the route your traffic takes to get to Dropbox, the Dropbox network and servers, congestion along any part of the route to Dropbox, throttling by your ISP (very common), failures along the route that cause your traffic to take another path, etc.
Simply put, there is no expected speed. You get whatever speed you're capable of given all the factors above, and many others.
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- Mark
Super User II
It depends TOTALLY upon your own set up - so nobody else can give any sort of comparison.
What I would say though is that it will speed up once the initial folder creation is completed and it gets on to larger files. Dropbox sync's smallest -> largest and as smallest has the most overheads these are slowest to download.
That doesn't help me much - I can't believe downloads can be this slow. I've got a fast computer and just about the fastest internet that you can get and I'm still only getting 20MB/s. What are the fastest speeds other people are getting?
- Lusil
Dropbox Staff
- Rich
When you're looking at the numbers, make sure you're comparing apples to apples, and not oranges.
The speed from your ISP is likely listed in Kb/s or Mb/s; megabits. The speeds reported by Dropbox are in KB/s or MB/s; bytes. You need to do the conversion before you can simply compare them.
Also, the speed you see from Dropbox isn't simply the transfer speed of the data. Each file that you upload is hashed, compressed, then transferred, encrypted, and stored on the Dropbox servers. That entire process is included in the aggregate speed that's displayed in the Dropbox sync status. In other words, the speed reported by Dropbox is not just a transfer speed, but the speed at which the entire process is being completed. The actual transfer speed is higher, but when you factor in the entire process, it appears lower.
I found that if I turn my VPN on, then my transfer rates get a bit better. They jump from 20MB/s to 70MB/s so I my ISP Bell Canada seems to be throttling dropbox traffic. Which is odd because they don't throttle Google drive.
I think it would be good to list what kind of speeds people get with different setups just so that they know the range and what to expect.
On a 12 Core Powermac with 950Mbps download speed I get 70MB/s
Everyone share your stats so we can know better what to expect.
- Rich
That won't do you any good. There are so many things that affect speed that you could have two people with an identical setup and still have wildly different speeds. Your computer, your local network, your ISP, the route your traffic takes to get to Dropbox, the Dropbox network and servers, congestion along any part of the route to Dropbox, throttling by your ISP (very common), failures along the route that cause your traffic to take another path, etc.
Simply put, there is no expected speed. You get whatever speed you're capable of given all the factors above, and many others.
Hi Chrismo.
I also have a fast connection, and always get the advertised Gigabit speeds uploading and downloading. Except with dropbox.
My uploads and downloads cap out at 13.5MBps.
Dropbox suggested that this is an ISP issue, but have contacted them and they confirmed that in no way do they restrict dropbox traffic at all.
- Rich
LP_DB wrote:
My uploads and downloads cap out at 13.5MBps.
That's the equivalent of a 108Mbps connection, which is fast. Again, remember, that's NOT just the transfer speed to/from Dropbox. That's the speed in which your files are processed, start to finish, with all the hashing, compressing, encrypting, etc., that takes place during the process.
And, again, 13.5MBps is not the same as 13.5Mbps. It IS the same as 108Mbps. A 13.5MBps speed to Dropbox is fast. Likely one of the fastest reported speeds I've seen to Dropbox.
- Mate I’m very aware of the difference between MBps and Mbps.
My downloads are routinely 80-100MBps on every other service except Dropbox.
If you’re telling me that the max speed of Dropbox uploads is a flat 13.5MBps then it’s wildly unfit for purpose as a business service. - Rich
What I'm telling you, "mate," is that you need to understand what that speed is referring to, and not just compare it to a transfer speed you get from another service that doesn't do the same chunking of files that Dropbox has to do before transferring anything.
I'm not saying Dropbox is faster or even as fast as other services. I am saying, understand how the service works and what the numbers represent before attempting to compare the speeds to other services.
