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Why is my download speed slow?
Hi, I don't understand why I'm having such a big problem downloading a movie from my Dropbox file onto my MacbookPro laptop. The file is only 1.2GB, I'm connected to my router with an ethernet cable,...
Don't forget your data is transmitted encrypted and must be decrypted. That happens on the drive, along with checks to make sure the enitre file reaches you. It will take some time.
Dropbox will never use the complete full download bandwidth. It also is affected by you using other things, like mail, web etc during those times Dropbox may slow the process to allow you to continue working. It could be affected by things like you allowing the computer to sleep.
Have you checked your bandwidth settings ? https://help.dropbox.com/syncing-uploads/faster-sync
Many, many, factors can contribute to each users individual experience.
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- And just for completeness, remember that the speed you see reported by Dropbox is not simply the transfer speed of your data. Tom and Jay have already mentioned the encryption, but also, 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. It can never be compared to the advertised speeds from your ISP.
I have been having exactly the same problem! I too am on a MBP with over 250GB free (started with over 400GB) last night. I am on a cable network with d/l consistently over 115mbps and with the dropbox icon showing 9627KB/sec, 27 mins left (it said only 1 hour left 6 hours ago), and yet this has been downloading for more than 12 hours now! I realize my download is much larger, but even so, there is no reason that anyone's downloads should take 12 hours with speeds such as these! Dropbox is throttling us even though we subscribe to DBPro! Uploading to DB doesn't even take a quarter of the time it does to download!
I purchased a DB subscription because it was much better than any other options. Has DB been bought out by a competitor? Has DB changed their standards? At this rate, there's not much reason to keep spending money with DB. I may as well move everything over to their competitor's site which I've had for longer than I've had DB anyway, and pay them the difference.
Dropbox please give Josi and I some answers/resolution to the issues that we're having!!!
