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Forum Discussion
Dropbox not uploading/ uploading v slow
I have dropbox installed on multiple devices and they all work fine, except it has suddenly stopped uploading on my windows laptop.
I moved a load of photos off my phone onto dropbox on my laptop l...
I have a 5MB upload hard wired internet. Yet when I upload large files using my desktop application, I'm only getting 10-66kb transfer speeds. Why so slow? My ISP has checked and found nothing wrong with my service. Is Dropbox "throttling back" my upload speed? There are no other devises being used that would reduce band width. Please help!
Andrea--
I wouldn't have posted on this forum if I hadn't already isolated those variables. I don't have time to give you a complete breakdown of my methodology, but one of the many testing methods I utilized was leveraging an EC2 box in the same datacenter as dropbox and it is capable of completing saturating my home connection, even at peak usage hours, and using SSL. In fact, I was able to get better transfer speeds than dropbox by tunneling my connection through amsterdam, and back to the same datacenter as dropbox in the US.
In addition, I experience slow speeds from dropbox with AND without the app, and have verified the app bandwidth settings.
The more likely scenario: In an effort to reduce costs, dropbox is over scheduling and undersizing their EC2 boxes which act as the gateway to the amazon S3 stores where the files are stored. Therefore, any bottleneck that occurs on the EC2 boxes will give rise to a bottleneck on the overall transfer speed. This bottleneck could be in any number of places: CPU on enc-dec operations (undersizing the EC2 box), CPU on misc serving operations (undersizing the EC2 box), individual EC2 instance bandwidth (over scheduling the EC2 box), too many simultaneous connections to an individual S3 store (Over scheduling an S3 store)
While I completely understand WHY dropbox would do this (gotta make money right?), I am disappointed they are doing this. I would gladly pay $5 more a month to get a speed which I would describe as "price of entry" for a cloud storage service.
Just imagine how upset the people with gigabit internet are? You have gigabit internet and you can only access your dropbox files at 60-100 mbps. I would be irate. Thankfully I only have 150 mbps connection, so the insult doesn't sting as much.
You have to realize that when you offer people 1 TB of cloud storage, the speed at which you can access your files becomes paramount.
same problem.
this is unbearable. 8gb in 7days! is it for real? it's faster to send them via dhl in a pendriveDropbox speed sucks... PERIOD and there is nothing you can do about it. Yes, web upload are faster but I have a 175Mbps connection and get no where near 10% of that speed when uploading even with my pro account.
Just be patient ;-)
I found that there is a difference in "upload" speed, and "sync" speed. I was dragging files into my Dropbox folder located on my hard drive and found slow "sync" speeds. When I uploaded the file directly to Dropbox via a web browser the speeds were significantly faster. I am supprised that Dropbox tech support didn't ask me about this. I had to find out on my own. So better speeds, not so good tech support.
Same problem here. 10 MB up shown on speedtest.net. Other services like crash plan will take advantage of the full available upload speed, but dropbox stays around 1700 kb max with no limit and all apps closed.
- Had this problem with Dropbox years ago. Our company had to cancel Business plan because of slow speeds. Now several years later we try to give Dropbox a chance. But no, the problem is still there. All other cloud services upload at 2-5 MByte/s. Dropbox uploads at 70 KByte/s (sometimes picking at 2 MByte/s for only a couple of secs). 😂 Gonna cancel again.
Yep, unfortunately I still have this problem as well. I get ~100mbit/s on Dropbox, and I typically get anywhere from 500-700mbit/s on google drive. Unforunately, I still need to use dropbox because there are other features I rely on.
I had a 5 week game of ping-pong going with dropbox support before they finally gave up and said, in not so many words "We don't know what is wrong, but you are getting an 'acceptable' level of service, so we can't help you"
Such is how it goes, I guess.
I'm sure someone, somewhere at dropbox knows what the issue is, but it isn't something they want to disclose to the public. Guess I just have to keep waiting for their tech to catch up...
i have the same problem... i'm using the last version of desktop client and i'm really started to think that i need to change my strorage service, because dropbox can't upload a 10 mb photo in 10 minutes... amazing...
I have exactly the same issues.
Dropbox takes forever to start, at least a few hours and sometimes more than a day.
And when it finally works, it's unbelievably SLOW...
After 24 hrs of stand alone syncing it has about 10.000 files done and then it just starts allover again...
I keep getting the same numbers of files being indexed and synced again and again.
I have complained and asked for help but they just give me standard BS-answers.
appearently they just don't care for customers who have already paid them good money so we end up with a product that just won't work properly anymore.
It's not our computers or networks that cause this problem, it's the lazy people at dropbox that just don't care.
I therefore decided to end my PRO-subscription after about 5 years.
If myself and everybody else with these same problems are not important enough for them to fix this problem than they don't deserve my business/money.
Luckily there are plenty of other cloud services!
I have an MS in Electrical Engineering, and a BS in computer science, and a BS in mathematics (Pretty much for free once you have MSEE) and work as a software engineer as my day job, but not for Dropbox.
However, since I have always hated the "argument from authority" and the "argument from credential" -- just assume I am the pixie dust spreader on the tilt-a-whirl, and take my arguments on their own merits, not mine :)
1. The problem is very LIKELY to be one or more of the following:
A. Software Issue on the Server Side, either at the AWS abstraction layer or the Dropbox abstraction layer. This could include how Dropbox has their AWS services configured.
B. Hardware Issue on the Dropbox side. (AWS) This could be, but not limited to, the following:
*Bandwidth Issues between S3 and EC2.
*Not enough CPU/MEM (not using enough EC2 instances, or not having large enough EC2 instances) to support ENCDEC and crypt/decrypt, web serving, authentication, indexing and other operations performed on the EC2 servers.
*Bandwidth Issues between EC2 and Amazon's backhaul to the internet. (This is unlikely, because I can get WAY faster speeds between my own EC2 instance in the same region)
2. The problem is very UNLIKELY to be one or more of the following:
A. Software Issues with the Client (Problem is present in Mac, Windows, and Linux Versions, and also presents itself using a browser)
B. Hardare Issue Client Side. (I have tested this with multiple pieces of my own hardware, and dropbox utilizes only modest percentages of system resources while uploading and downloading at full speed, indexing, etc)
C. Bandwidth Issue Client Side. (Have tested this with multiple ISPs, in different cities, and have verified the bandwidth to my own EC2 instance in the same AWS region as Dropboxes)
D. Bandwidth Issue on intermediary routes between ISP and AWS (See C)
That said, if you were hoping for a Dropbox software engineer to comment on this thread, prepare to be unsurprised and unimpressed. :)
UPDATE: A final note: This issue is happening with multiple people, using multiple devices, in multiple cities, on multiple operating systems, on multiple ISPs, uploading files of various sizes. It isn't GUARANTEED to be server side, but in terms of everyday language, it is very LIKELY on the server side.
I just upgraded to pro since I don't like any of the other services and I have been using dropbox for years. Now I'm disappointed because I'm uploading at 100kb/s. As mentioned, it would be faster to just mail them a drive...
Have you checked the bandwidth settings in the Dropbox preferences of the desktop app?
Yes. There are no limits on how much bandwidth is used or KB uploaded. I still have not received any response from Dropbox. I tried Google Drive and it was much faster.
