Maximum download and upload speeds

[chrismo]

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?

[Mark]

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.

[chrismo]

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]

Hey peeps!

I just wanted to add to what @Mark said about Dropbox being able to upload/download as fast as your ISP allows and also mention that, although Dropbox doesn't normally use all of your bandwidth, you can change that by manually setting the upload/download speed. 

Please bear in mind though that setting your Upload to Don't Limit or a higher number than your connection is capable of will likely cause all other Internet activity on your network to slow significantly.

Let us know if you have any other questions!

[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.

[chrismo]

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 teh factors above, and many others.