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?

[u_kadru]

@One800J 

I'm interested to know what other service will give you near gigabit speeds? Google drive file stream has way less speed than Dropbox on a bad day. I can only see Onedrive as a viable option but haven't tested their maximum speeds.

[dandidandi]

Riddle me this Rich, why am I getting 100mbps on Drive File Sync and 22mbps on Dropbox, same computer, same time of day, same connection?

[Dannyb128]

Would also like to say my download and upload speeds are currently crippling my workflow with clients.

I personally use Wetransfer for uploads but I have a client who always uploads to Dropbox and I'm currently downloading at about 20% of my actual Internet speed...

[Rich]

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@dandidandi wrote:

Riddle me this Rich, why am I getting 100mbps on Drive File Sync and 22mbps on Dropbox, same computer, same time of day, same connection?

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Asked and answered in the replies above. Read the entire thread.

[Chistojomo]

This answer tells it all. He is saying he knows it’s slower than the competition and 13.5 (108Mbps) is about as fast as it goes.

Dropbox is geared towards ease of use instead of speed. He wouldn’t be allowed to say that though - this the confusion.
Maybe someday there could be an option to turn off encryption and l let your full internet connection be used (and save your laptop’s battery), but until then We use Dropbox for it’s simplicity, and other services when we need speed.

Dropbox was one of the first of these services to come out. Back then 100Mbps was really fast. Maybe in some countries it still is but the new standard is 1000Mbps.

[DimTaniels]

These responses are good but not the right answer. 

It has to do with with the fact that DropBox picks data from your computer in 4MB blocks, then places on their server as it builds your file back up. The speed of this is dertermined by your machine and their machine. We'll go ahead and assume their machines are on the "super computer" level and our machines are not. Even with a Ryzen 3990x 64 core CPU, you'll still cap out. I use an 2009 MacPro Tower with 12cores at 3.4. This tower still revials newer iMac Pros. 

So... How do I know this? I spent roughly 6 hours on tech support that ended with a Sr. Tech letting me know this.

I had fiber installed at my house, one of the first houses in the neighborhood to have it so my speeds were right at 960mbps up and down... Drop Box... 13-15MBps... Which meant I could upload 1TB of raw footage in about 18hrs. I am NOT complaining about that as that means in about a day and a half, I can have a 2TB video shoot backed up. (In addition to 3 phyisical hard drives)

BUT, why not 100MBps (800mbps)?? It'd be pretty nice knowing I can get all footage backed up in about 6hrs.

So I called ATT, nope, they have no reason to throttle upload. I checked a few other file transfer softwares and the like and... Google Drive was hitting close to 60MBps on the same machine. Welp... off to DropBox tech support and wahlaa, DropBox is the problem.

Don't waste time calling you ISP or checking your network set up. If you have fiber, even on wifi, you should have plenty of bandwidth to hit 15-30MBps. 

Please correct me if I am wrong or was shared incoorect information by this Sr. Tech... but afterwards, in my digging around google on how this conecpt works, it made sense.

[Bright]

So, this is the reason I should stop with Dropbox. However, their backup/restore functionality is great, so I will have to rethink about this.

Getting a 500Mbps up/down (62MBps) connection soon, so some reconsideration would be good, for I wanted full backups to Dropbox, which seems not doable with this slow speeds.

[Think Jarvis]

Really interesting thread! I have over half a million files in dropbox and two copies synced. One on a portable and one on a workstation.

You have to remember that Dropbox is a backup and storage service. So it is a passive process and is limited somewhat to account for the number of customers Dropbox has.

The upload process is processor intensive as other users have suggested upload speed is often quicker on faster CPUs with SSDs.

If you need a faster backup, get a NAS drive with RAID and Dropbox capabilities. The dropobx backup can then take place overnight safe in the knowledge that there are at least 2 copies already available locally.

[nj21]

I have this problem. I have fiber internet and my old Acer laptop is maxing out the syncing speed via Wifi. Now, I have an MSI laptop that is newer and has better specs but it syncs really slow. My PC, which is my main workstation, with even better specs and fast storage, connected to the gigabit router directly, also gets capped speeds like my MSI laptop. Currently, I'm forced to use the old laptop for syncing files and it's a bit troublesome to transfer files back and forth. I hope someone might know the fix for this. Thank you.

[letitiam]

count yourself lucky, I am on a 1gb ethernet connection, and dropbox is saying 13 mins to download 35 mb