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Forum Discussion
Maximum download and upload speeds
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 Wha...
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 the factors above, and many others.
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?
Hi Chrismo.
I also have a fast connection, and always get the advertised Gigabit speeds uploading and downloading. Except with dropbox.
My uploads and downloads cap out at 13.5MBps.
Dropbox suggested that this is an ISP issue, but have contacted them and they confirmed that in no way do they restrict dropbox traffic at all.
- Mate I’m very aware of the difference between MBps and Mbps.
My downloads are routinely 80-100MBps on every other service except Dropbox.
If you’re telling me that the max speed of Dropbox uploads is a flat 13.5MBps then it’s wildly unfit for purpose as a business service.- Rich
Super User II
What I'm telling you, "mate," is that you need to understand what that speed is referring to, and not just compare it to a transfer speed you get from another service that doesn't do the same chunking of files that Dropbox has to do before transferring anything.
I'm not saying Dropbox is faster or even as fast as other services. I am saying, understand how the service works and what the numbers represent before attempting to compare the speeds to other services.
- As a business user in the video industry, I'm dealing with 100 GB transfers and quick turn around times so I am comparing it to other services. Dropbox suits our needs and is part of our workflow, but I would like to optimize our speeds, because there are cases when I need to use other services because dropbox is so much slower. It breaks our workflow, when we use another transfer method. It doesn't matter to us WHY it's slower. With Gigabit connections getting so common, people are expecting more.
Just installed a new computer. Boy, getting Dropbox on is taking days! Speed given by Dropbox itself is around 1,800 KB/sec. On all files, large and small. Hard to believe, but true!
For what it's worth: on my 10G symmetrical fiber line where my speed tests at speedtest.net come in at about 8000 Mbps / Megabits per second (1000 MBps / MegaBytes per second), my Dropbox download speed hovers around 80 MBps and sometimes goes as high as 150 MBps. This is using less than 10% of my total bandwidth. I do not have a bandwidth cap in my settings. Wondering how I can turn it up!?
- Rich
LP_DB wrote:
My uploads and downloads cap out at 13.5MBps.
That's the equivalent of a 108Mbps connection, which is fast. Again, remember, that's NOT just the transfer speed to/from Dropbox. That's the speed in which your files are processed, start to finish, with all the hashing, compressing, encrypting, etc., that takes place during the process.
And, again, 13.5MBps is not the same as 13.5Mbps. It IS the same as 108Mbps. A 13.5MBps speed to Dropbox is fast. Likely one of the fastest reported speeds I've seen to Dropbox.
- 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.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.
