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vasasda's avatar
vasasda
Explorer | Level 3
5 years ago

How to speed up downloading speed?

Hello! I'd like to download a considerable amount of data from my Dropbox account and the max speed I can get 1500 kB/s. Seems like it's been limited somehow. I have Dropbox Plus. What I've tried...
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Rich's avatar
Rich
Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
5 years ago
vasasda wrote:

... the max speed I can get 1500 kB/s. Seems like it's been limited somehow.

While most ISPs and speed test sites display their results in bits (kilo or mega), the speeds reported by Dropbox are in Bytes. Be sure to do the conversion before comparing. Your 1500KB/s transfer speed is approximately 12Mb/s.

 

Also, each file that you upload is hashed and compressed, then transferred, encrypted, and stored on the Dropbox servers. That entire process is included in the aggregate KB/s speed that's displayed in the Dropbox sync status. In other words, it's not just a transfer speed and can't be directly compared to the upload and download speeds provided by your ISP.

  • vasasda's avatar
    vasasda
    Explorer | Level 3
    5 years ago

    Let me specify myself a bit more. 

     

    In dropbox my speed is 1500 KB/s which is 12 Mbit/s

    My internet speed is 100 Mbit/s up and down, which is 12500 KB/s. 

     

    In this case Dropbox ~1/10 of my internet speed....

    I don't see this acceptable in 2020, most of the people have much faster internet than 12 Mbit/s and we are talking about Terrabytes of data...I let you to calculate how much time do you need to upload/download that much data with those speed.

     

    • Rich's avatar
      Rich
      Icon for Super User II rankSuper User II
      5 years ago
      vasasda wrote:

      I don't see this acceptable in 2020, most of the people have much faster internet than 12 Mbit/s ..

      And if we were talking about straight uploads with no other process happening to your files during that time, I'd agree with you, but that's not the case. A lot happens beyond a simple file transfer when syncing files.

      • vasasda's avatar
        vasasda
        Explorer | Level 3
        5 years ago

        So let's say the conclusion is that my CPU/HDD is the bottleneck? Do you have any recommendation what CPU is needed for using Dropbox file sync for a decent speed?

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