I am experiencing very slow upload speeds even though I have recently upgraded by internet connection (100mbs down and 40mbs up). I am a videographer who needs to upload gigabytes worth of footage online after every shoot and dropbox isn't even coming close to saturating my provided internet speed. Below is a list of what I have tried to no avail. Bear in mind that I do not have these upload speed issues with Google drive. - Restarted system and dropbox app multiple times - Disconnected and reconnected internet connection (both wifi and physical ethernet cable) - Uninstalled and reinstalled dropbox app on Windows 10 - Tried uploading directly to dropbox via website - Tried uploading in different browsers, private tabs and different computers with no success - Clearing both dropbox app cache and browser cache - Tried adjusting bandwith settings in desktop app - Tried restarting router I haven't had issues with dropbox upload speeds up until the past few weeks so something has clearly changed on Dropbox's side and not sure what is going on.

Hey RogueXLR, thanks for bringing this to our attention. Generally, syncing is a more complicated process than just transferring data. Each file is divided and compressed into hashed components, transferred via secure data transfer, and then encrypted and stored on our servers. It also depends on how fast your computer can process and compress the files, etc. Have you just recently started facing this issue? And is it possible that you might have more than 300K files in your Dropbox folder? Keep me posted.

Yes I do have just over 300k files in my dropbox account and have only started encoutering this issue recently

Hi from me as well, RogueXLR! Please keep in mind that the Dropbox app’s performance may decline if it tries to sync more than 300k files. What I’d like you to try, in case you have any large folders you don’t need to be synced locally, is to use selective sync and remove them from the desktop app, so that they only appear on www.dropbox.com. Let me know if this seems to help.

Nancy Ok I have just removed some files that way the total is under 300k and upload speed is now up to my max plan speed. I still don't understand how if there are more than 300k files and if nothing has changed on say 250k of them, why it drastically slows down the upload speed. I get that it has to check every file one by one but making it slow down upload speed is odd.

I’m glad to hear this seems to have solved the issue, RogueXLR! If you’d like to check more info on this, please take a look at this Help Center article, as well. Hope this helps.

Slow Upload Speeds | The Dropbox Community

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James M.58
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago
Hi Megan,

Here are a few screenshots. A short summary is my Dropbox is running at around 5-9mbps and google drive is doing more like 40mbps. My investigations reveal Dropbox is sending my data to Singapore instead of Australia. There is no speed limit on Dropbox.

Below you can see I'm getting 7.2 mbps on Dropbox and as you can see there is very little network activity other than the Tray Assistant.

For comparisons, I added some data to google drive and was getting 40.7 Mbps up

As you can see
As you can see from above my data is being synced with a server with an address of 162.125.81.12 and a tracert shows that the server is located in Singapore:

C:\Users\me>tracert 162.125.81.12 Tracing route to 162.125.81.12 over a maximum of 30 hops 1 1 ms <1 ms <1 ms RT-AX86U-CC18 [192.168.0.1] 2 11 ms 13 ms 14 ms #my IP address# 3 * 10 ms * 10.241.5.130 4 98 ms 98 ms 98 ms be3.core1.equinix-sg1.sin.aussiebb.net [180.150.2.85] 5 114 ms 98 ms 98 ms 19679.sgw.equinix.com [27.111.229.7] 6 97 ms 97 ms 99 ms ae1-sin1-ea01.net.dropbox.com [162.125.86.141] 7 99 ms 96 ms 97 ms 162.125.81.12 Trace complete.
Megan
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago
Hey James M.58, thanks for all the detailed info!

Could you also send me a screenshot of your Speedtest results?

What sync speed do you usually see via the app, and how long does it take to upload a file via the web with the same size of the file?
James M.58
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago
Thanks for all the questions but could you please answer my original question? Is there any option to move Australian users' data to Australia? I feel like Australian users are not getting value for money by being forced to overseas servers. It would appear this is the reason for their poor performance and you are ignoring it.

Sync speeds according to the tray icon are in keeping with the earlier screenshot (400-900 kB/s bytes vs bits of course).

Uploads via the web are just as slow. As you can see from the Google Drive results my connection speed is fine.

Uploads via the web or app are about 4x slower than via google drive.

RogueXLR where are you based how is your problem going?
James M.58
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago
Just a heads up. This really needs to be fixed. If I was depending on Dropbox I would have missed a deadline tonight. Luckily Google Drive is working well with Australian servers.
Sam DBX
Community Manager
3 years ago
Hi all,

Thanks for the input.

To clarify, our storage servers are located in data centers across the United States.

We have storage servers in Australia, the European Union, Japan, and the United Kingdom for eligible Dropbox business users.

If your team's data is kept in the US but your billing address is somewhere else, you might be able to transfer your data to a server closer to your billing location. Here are the instructions: https://help.dropbox.com/security/physical-location-data-storage

Regarding the upload speed, you've mentioned you actioned on this step, but leaving here as future reference as well: to set Dropbox to the maximum amount of bandwidth that’s possible, and potentially increase the speed of the Dropbox desktop app, choose Don’t limit on Dropbox desktop app preferences.

Ps: If you're still unsure about your storage location and speed limits, we can take this on with our support team to check this for you.

Thanks!
James M.58
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago
Sadly, I do not meet the requirements to move my data. I'm on a professional plan as and don't have at least 10 licences. Can you please escalate this issue?
Nancy
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago
Hi James M.58! Unfortunately, if you’re not on a Business plan, it’s not possible to migrate your data over to our Australian servers.

However, we can log a ticket for you and look into your speed issue. Let us know if that’s OK, and we can message you to the email address that’s tied to your Community profile here.
James M.58
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago
A support ticket won't improve the upload speed between Australia and Singapore.

I'm asking you to move all Australian user's data to Australia. It's a shame this won't happen given you've already provisioned servers for some Australian users. I've been a client for over 10 years but now I'm leaving. I'll also recommend other Australian users leave too.
James M.58
Explorer | Level 3
3 years ago
Just a heads-up to Australian users on professional plans who are experiencing slow speeds. Your data is located in Singapore is so you'll never get the same performance with Dropbox as you do with One Drive or Google Drive as their servers are in Australia.
Hannah
Dropbox Community Moderator
3 years ago
Sorry to hear that you feel that way, James M.58.

We'll make sure to pass your feedback onto the team and if you change your mind, let us know and we'll be happy to help.