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Why is the syncing of files to Google as slow as cold molasses? 1 Recommended Answer 54 Replies 302 Upvotes
Last edited 1/7/20
I am backing up some of my data (mainly images, that admittedly are large in size) to Google Drive. It is taking literally days to do this.
This has involved lots of only 126, 112, 23, 61, 70, 451 and 20,512 files. I'm into my third day and only half of the biggest lot is done. (The rest are finally uploaded). People seem to have been complaining about very slow syncing for years.
Does anyone know what the problem is and how to fix it?
Thank you.
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Hi Everyone,
How long it will take and how fast uploads/downloads will proceed is a function of:
- How small the file is. The bigger, the better. With small files, the overhead of opening connection for a file (both to the server and to your hard drive), then handshaking each packet transferred, then closing down the connection, then doing all that over for the next file becomes significant. When I do weekly tests of typical user throughput, I use 5GB-15GB files so that the transfer of each file maxes out the internet connection path all the way through to the Google servers- thus also minimizing the local computer's OS overhead.
- Whether you are wireless or wired. Wireless connections can have dropouts as transfers continue. Often the dropouts are fast and hard to "see" but will trigger retries for any packets of data in flight. Generally home WiFi connections should be faster than the ISP upload path rate, so such dropouts would have less significant effects on the transfer rate, but that is very much specific to the user's home/neighborhood.
- The path from your home router/modem to Google. Yes, within your ISP you are probably going to have a fairly consistent throughput. However, first realize that it can be the case that some areas are oversubscribed within that ISP causing less performance. It's not unusual for users to be in ISP forums complaining about wide variations in internal ISP throughput. That being said, the far more likely cause of path performance issues is congestion outside the ISP. The longhaul ISPs are often dealing with heavy congestion that they will only resolve by spending millions (yes millions) of dollars on upgrading/adding paths. For personal home ISP accounts, you have no service assurance at all once the data is outside your ISP. Only businesses may have end-to-end performance metrics assured. There have been and continue to be classic cases where longhaul ISPs have had congestion problems on nodes around the country/world, often lasting months.
The above information is accurate and determine from professional work experience. I also weekly test the connections I have, which do not use any business paths/accounts, to profile just how fast an upload/download I am able to accomplish. My test parameters are to use 5-15GB files so that it maxes out the transfer rates through the entire end-to-end connection. The results continue to be consistent with about 80% of the bandwidth stated for the ISP plans I use.
I strongly encourage you, if possible to try to run your own tests using such large files. Then use your computer's performance monitoring abilities to see how sustained the throughput rate is, how the CPU , DISK, etc performance is during said transfers.
If you are not getting about 80% or more of the throughput your ISP is assuring, you should post a separate thread and see if digging deeper with you will expose the reasons.
Hope this clarifies things for you, but of course please feel free to inquire further!
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These instructions are for a Mac, but if you are on a PC, you may be able to figure out where the configuration files are stored and try a similar fix.
I was having the same issue and my partner just helped me figure out a fix. He suspects the configuration files were corrupted, so we renamed the Google-Drive folder to Google-Drive.old and the hidden config Drive folder to Drive.old. Quit Backup and Sync and rename the main Google Drive folder. To find the hidden Drive folder from Finder, select Go > Go to Folder... and type ~/Library. When the finder window opens navigate to Application Support > Google > Drive. Rename this folder and restart Backup and Sync. It will recreate the folder and start a fresh installation. This worked well for me and the download speeds are back to normal. The old files are not erased, so I can check to make sure everything syncs before deleting the duplicates.
I was having the same issue and my partner just helped me figure out a fix. He suspects the configuration files were corrupted, so we renamed the Google-Drive folder to Google-Drive.old and the hidden config Drive folder to Drive.old. Quit Backup and Sync and rename the main Google Drive folder. To find the hidden Drive folder from Finder, select Go > Go to Folder... and type ~/Library. When the finder window opens navigate to Application Support > Google > Drive. Rename this folder and restart Backup and Sync. It will recreate the folder and start a fresh installation. This worked well for me and the download speeds are back to normal. The old files are not erased, so I can check to make sure everything syncs before deleting the duplicates.
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Has anyone tried this method for PC? I work on large media files and am nervous to mess with my footage that is being backed up.
However, he is very right. I have pretty fast internet but it's not uploading faster than 8Mbps. I know upload speeds are slower for most ISPs but this is going to take forever.
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Hi Everyone,
How long it will take and how fast uploads/downloads will proceed is a function of:
- How small the file is. The bigger, the better. With small files, the overhead of opening connection for a file (both to the server and to your hard drive), then handshaking each packet transferred, then closing down the connection, then doing all that over for the next file becomes significant. When I do weekly tests of typical user throughput, I use 5GB-15GB files so that the transfer of each file maxes out the internet connection path all the way through to the Google servers- thus also minimizing the local computer's OS overhead.
- Whether you are wireless or wired. Wireless connections can have dropouts as transfers continue. Often the dropouts are fast and hard to "see" but will trigger retries for any packets of data in flight. Generally home WiFi connections should be faster than the ISP upload path rate, so such dropouts would have less significant effects on the transfer rate, but that is very much specific to the user's home/neighborhood.
- The path from your home router/modem to Google. Yes, within your ISP you are probably going to have a fairly consistent throughput. However, first realize that it can be the case that some areas are oversubscribed within that ISP causing less performance. It's not unusual for users to be in ISP forums complaining about wide variations in internal ISP throughput. That being said, the far more likely cause of path performance issues is congestion outside the ISP. The longhaul ISPs are often dealing with heavy congestion that they will only resolve by spending millions (yes millions) of dollars on upgrading/adding paths. For personal home ISP accounts, you have no service assurance at all once the data is outside your ISP. Only businesses may have end-to-end performance metrics assured. There have been and continue to be classic cases where longhaul ISPs have had congestion problems on nodes around the country/world, often lasting months.
The above information is accurate and determine from professional work experience. I also weekly test the connections I have, which do not use any business paths/accounts, to profile just how fast an upload/download I am able to accomplish. My test parameters are to use 5-15GB files so that it maxes out the transfer rates through the entire end-to-end connection. The results continue to be consistent with about 80% of the bandwidth stated for the ISP plans I use.
I strongly encourage you, if possible to try to run your own tests using such large files. Then use your computer's performance monitoring abilities to see how sustained the throughput rate is, how the CPU , DISK, etc performance is during said transfers.
If you are not getting about 80% or more of the throughput your ISP is assuring, you should post a separate thread and see if digging deeper with you will expose the reasons.
Hope this clarifies things for you, but of course please feel free to inquire further!
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Hi Jessica. Thank you very much for your advice. I am not syncing. I specifically choose files or folders to upload for backup. Consequently, because they are specifically selected uploads I select and monitor - I am very aware of the slow speed.
IMO syncing interferes with the efficiency of my computer function. In addition when you have multiple devices all kinds of things can go seriously wrong.
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Damn right, I got 100Mbps downlink and 20Mbps uplink with Gigabit wired LAN, yet what I saw in my MikroTik is that Backup & Sync only use around 3-4Mbps uplink. What a donkey. Then what is the point of having a limiter option in the settings? I only backup videos and there's no such thing as a small size video today.
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