Slow upload speed

[xerkon]

Dropbox is uploading at about 1/10th of the speed of my upload connection. I ran an Ookla speed test while dropbox was uploading and you can see my results below. The speed test says I have a 9 MBps upload speed and dropbox is uploading at 1 MBps. Any ideas?

I'm using the desktop installation on Windows 7.

[mail3dexter]

The reason could be many things. Let's start with the question, was the Ookla speed test server at the same distance as Dropbox's server? The answer to that would be maximum time no as speed test servers are hosted very near to customers in ISP network. They do not give real information like say you have 10Mbps connection, but will you really get 10Mbps once you cross your ISP's network? The answer is NO. No ISP will guarantee that once traffic leaves their network. So thats the connectivity part.

Secondly, it is latency that would be very harsh on data transfer speed. Even if you have 10Gbps connection, you can transfer at very low speeds because of how TCP works (a widely protocol used to transfer data). You can search these terms if you want to understand them in deep: "calculate tcp throughput with latency" or "tcp speed calculator according to delay".

Third, different speeds for different paths. I have seen this in the past many times. In your question, you have not mentioned your actual/bought/committed internet speed. I have seen ISPs who would grant you different speeds based on different destinations. Like, for Google/Youtube, they might have a dedicated connection with them and since they pay for that connection at a almost fixed rate every month, they want to utilise that connection as much as possible. So they provide uncapped/more speeds as compared to the committed speeds. I have seen connections with 10Mbps committed speeds getting 100Mbps on youtube to se videos and on microsoft to download windows/office updates.

So these were some of the reasons you can get different speedtest results. You cannot do apple to apple comparison between different destinations.

If you want to dig deeper into this, we can do that but before that, I would need few more information like whats your committed/bought internet speed, who is your ISP (My experience in networking domain helps me in knowing ISPs behaviour and how their service would be), etc.

[Jay]

Hi @xerkon, thanks for posting on the community!

There is a possibility that a proxy, VPN, firewall, security software, or even ISP/router issues could be restricting traffic to the following Dropbox domains.

I'd recommend trying to check each one of these to se if any of them could be affecting the app's connection to the site.

Keep me updated with any progress!



 

[xerkon]

@mail3dexter - None of that stuff you're talking about produces a straight line in a graph. It's obvious my upload speed is being governed by some setting.

[xerkon]

[xerkon]

Basically, uploading to dropbox via the web works as it should (10 MB per second). But uploading via dropbox folder is stuck at 1 MB per second, even after selecting the "do not limit" option. Is that setting broken on Windows 7? Could someone check that on their computer?

[Jay]

Hi @xerkon, have you checked my previous response to see if any app or service is throttling your upload speed in the desktop app?

[xerkon]

Sorry, @Jay, I'm not getting it. How can my web browser (firefox) upload/download at full speed from www.dropbox.com while an app that was made by dropbox for accessing dropbox can't? It sounds like what you're saying is that the dropbox desktop app doesn't know how to correctly communicate with its own domain? But that's the whole purpose of the app!

Also, I have no idea what you mean by "checking" a domain. Check how? With what tools? Maybe you wouldn't mind giving me an example, if you still think that might be the issue. Thanks!

[Jay]

There can be some apps or services which restrict other apps on your computer. Antivirus and security software can prevent the Dropbox app from connecting to the site, or preventing it from connecting at full speed. 

Try disabling any software which could be related to this. This article also gives more information on what could be causing this.

[Soonjas · Accepted solution]

Hey @xerkon  I am too experiencing this issue, and so are others. Windows 7 as well.

This is my post here: https://www.dropboxforum.com/t5/Dropbox-files-folders/Does-Dropbox-limit-the-upload-speed-Very-Slow-...

There is obviously a problem with Dropbox app with Windows 7.