[Edited on 22/05/2013 – In case you are interested in a speed test of different solutions, after you finish this post, you can go right here. There is a speed test of Dropbox vs Google Drive vs Box vs SkyDrive vs Google Cloud Drive]
Inspired by the success of an old Dropbox vs iDisk speed test post I took on the challenge to repeat a similar – yet more limited – set of tests with .
As in the other post, let me print this disclaimer so that nobody can complain of the lack of scientific methodology behind my tests:
I acknowledge that this testing methodology is far from being scientific.
My setup and test methods might have affected the results and other people might get different values even opposite from what I am sharing in this post.
The results posted on this blog are for personal use only and do not constitute a definitive proof on what service is faster.
More tests, using different scenarios, different networks, and a systematic way to time events are needed to calculate average times, variance values and to draw some more informative conclusions.
Methodology and configuration
I have only used my MacBook Pro 15″ with both Dropbox and Google Drive clients installed on it.
The tests measure the time it takes to upload four different types of files to Dropbox and Google Drive. For the tests I used these files:
- ZIP file, 23MB.
- XML file, 9MB.
- MP3 file, 10MB.
- One folder containing folders/subfolders up to three levels and a total of 2663 files and a smaller one with 673 files. More on this later.
My test methodology simply involved carrying out a Copy Item and Paste Item operation between folders while measuring the time using my iPhone stopwatch.
The errors that you invariably introduce when you execute tests in this way can be so big that I wisely decided to not consider fractions of a second in my measurements. All data are correct to the nearest second.
To avoid that other software might influence the upload speeds, before running my tests I quit all browsers, mail programs, RSS readers etc.
Test results with single files
I have collected the results in this table:
and in these three graphs:
As you can see from the results, in this David and Goliath battle Dropbox performs quite well.
Not only that, but because of the technology used by Dropbox, subsequent uploads of the same file are significantly faster than with Google Drive.
Dropbox splits the file you upload into chunks and calculate the hash of each of them. If a chunk with the same hash already exists on the cloud, Dropbox doesn’t upload it but simply match it with the existing one.
It looks to me that Dropbox have offset their limited resources with smarter algorithms whereas Google has simply given us a hard-drive in the cloud so to speak.
This will probably be the recurrent theme in the battle between the two services. Google going for sheer size, speed and integration with its other services whereas Dropbox will likely add small, elegant features to differentiate its product from the competition.
Test results with folders
I was curious to check the behaviour of a copy/paste operation of some useless temporary folder with a bunch of small files in them.
In my experience, different systems behave completely differently when it comes to deal with a large number of small files.
Somehow my curiosity has rewarded me, or maybe has just added a question that I don’t have the answer to. This is what I’ve found.
I first copied to Dropbox these two folders:
- Folder A with 2663 temporary files in it and a structure with three level of subfolders.
- Folder B with 673 temporary files in it stored directly under the main father folder.
Dropbox behaved quite normally, it took about 3 minutes to copy Folder A and about a minute for Folder B. Quite ordinary.
When I repeated the same test with Google Drive I was surprised to discover that Google Drive managed to complete the job only after 15–20 minutes (I stopped measuring the time because I though there was no reason to continue the experiment). To make sure that I wasn’t suffering from some broadband problems or an unavailability of Google Drive, I repeated the same test other three times at different times of the day getting exactly the same results. Why?
Why would Google Drive have such problems uploading this type of data?
If somebody has any idea I’d like to hear it and I would also be curious to know if you can reproduce the same behaviour. For your information I attempted to copy
/Users/[username]/Library/Calendars and
/Users/[username]/Library/Calendars/Calendar Sync Changes Conclusions
As you can see from the tests that I carried out, both solutions return similar results. In case you upload the same file multiple times, Dropbox is dramatically faster thanks to the smart use of algorithms that make sure that file chunks with the same hash are not uploaded twice.
The obvious conclusion is that if you base your decision to use either Dropbox or Google Drive on pure speed only you will not get a clear answer. Dropbox in particular circumstances can be way faster than Google Drive despite not having the massive data centres Google have all over the world.
Google can entice us in many ways to use its Google Drive but speed is not one of them. Obviously the big advantage for Google is the integration of Google Drive with the other services available. It is definitely in that arena that the real battle for the best consumer cloud solution will be fought.
For instance, just two days ago Dropbox introduced the possibility to upload pictures directly from your camera and I am sure that we’ll see many other innovations coming our way.
Great work. I feel you should publish it somewhere, because I havent seen a similar comparison anywhere yet. Since Dropbox now encourages media upload, speed is very important!
Thanks Vassilis, much appreciated.
Let’s see if Google indexes it fast so people can easily find the page.
Pietro
Great article. It seems that Dropbox utilizes a technology that makes file copying smarter and more efficient. However, I have also read many user posts complaining about Dropbox’s upload speed. I would love to upgrade my Dropbox account but their prices are considerably higher than the competition (perhaps for good reason as you found out!).
Thanks Mark, much appreciated.
I’m in the market for a cloud solution and Dropbox would fit just perfectly in my workflow. As you said its prices are still high compared to the competition.
I’ve been thinking about the reasons behind it and I’ve come up with the fact that customer subscriptions is the only source of revenue for Dropbox. This is their core business, they don’t need to mine our data to make money.
In a way this is good for users willing to pay a bit more. I can foresee a future where Dropbox might cater for the high end of the market leaving the rest to Google and Skydrive.
iCloud remains a mystery but I’m confident that the service will evolve in such a way that it’ll catch up and overtake the other services.
Pietro
We used Sugarsync for our small business. It was fantastic for about 6 months. then it orphaned our files, support restored them however we lost valuable data.
So…
I canned it.
Then I moved everything to Drive. I’ve been waiting for 2 days for it to sync. It is so slow.
So i started searching speed tests, and I found this. Thanks!
I think we’ll move to Dropbox for teams. Be it more expensive, I cant put a price on having solid, fast, cloud computing as we are a small business with 3 employees in 3 different locations.
Cheers
Mick
My problem is, that Dropbox always slow down my computer when I save new data or when I delete folder with many files. I am web developer and very often I have to delete/save folder with some web page, which is tons of files. Then my computer is very slow, sometimes for half an hour, sometimes more, depends how many files I deleted/saved.
Do you have same problem? My colleague from team has the same problem, so I think it’s not about my computer, which is good.
Is Google Drive also slowing down computer?
Thx Pavel
Hi Pavel,
I only use Dropbox and haven’t noticed my computer slowing down. I cannot comment on Google Drive as I don’t use it.
Truth is the way I use Dropbox is not as advanced as you so it might be that when you copy/delete big files things change. Maybe some of the readers can comment on this? Has anyone experienced what Pavel is seeing?
Best regards,
Pietro
I decided I wanted to backup my photos onto the cloud, and thought I’d use Drive as it’s cheap, and I’m google-ified already with my phone and email.
Like others here I’ve had problems with the Drive upload speed, which I find rubbish when you’re trying to upload a slightly complex folder structure with lots of files in. The folder I’m trying to upload is admittedly very big (13 GB), but I think the way Drive handles it is crap. The upload speed is painfully slow, and all it can tell me is that ‘122 of 2984′ is uploaded. I can’t control the bandwidth, so it kills any other browsing, and worst of all, I’ve noticed that every time I switch the computer on again and it resumes the sync, it seems to go back to square one with the file sync, rather than picking up from where it left off. I think I will buy another external hard drive instead, much less effort
Hi John,
Thanks for your comment. I stopped using Drive straight after posting these tests and I find it funny that in all this time, Google has not been able to solve this type of issues.
Maybe Drive was not designed to work well with complex file structures. In that case the problem is even worse.
An external HDD is always a good choice especially if you can rotate your backups using two HDD. Keep one at home, one at the office and each week you save your backups on the other drive.
Cheers,
Pietro
Stumbled upon this and have to comment. My wife and I recently had our first child and immedately took 3,000 pictures of said child. I now have pictures I can’t lose. So I decided to move my iPhoto library to the cloud. I also have local backup via time machine. But, I wanted triple redundancy with an online backup off site.
My iPhoto library is very big. 80GB or so big. Also, if you have ever dug into an iPhoto library you know it is a nightmare of folders and tiny data files.
My experience with Drive was terrible. It uploaded very slowly (weeks to upload 80GB) and worst of all it made my computer nearly unusable whenever it was running. Frequently taking 100%+ of CPU… etc. There are hundreds of complaints about this on Google support forums.
I have always used Dropbox (in a free account) for documents. I never had a problem with it and it was always very fast. When Dropbox recently lowered pricing on pro plans I signed up for the 100GB account and ditched drive.
Dropbox took about a week to upload my data. I have a 1.5mps internet connection and I get about 190kbps upload speed with dropbox with throttling turned off. Much of this time was uploading and indexing very small files. Dropbox syncs files from small to large; so, for the first day or so upload was very slow because it seemed to take a few seconds for each file even if it was a 1kb. (iPhoto libraries have a ton of tiny files for photo edit data… etc.).
The biggest reason dropbox it so much better in my opinion is because the computer still works while it is syncing and the program is rock solid, never crashing. Google Drive crashes constantly and will bring your computer to its knees no matter how much processor speed you have.
Thanks for your comment Stephen.
It looks like that my tests showed something that is happening to other users too. Very interesting.
The pictures of your baby are very important and remember that Dropbox is not a real backup solution. You might want to take a look at some online backup solutions. Eventually I went for Crashplan and couldn’t be happier.
Best regards,
Pietro
Nice article. Thanks. I’d like to move to Google Drive because; lower cost, the ability to use 2-step verification and integration of Google Apps. Google Drive however is so slow compared to Dropbox and I’m not convinced that the security, price and integration are worth the extremely slow performance that Drive provides.
Thanks Gary.
For a while I thought of moving everything to Google Apps for domain Enterprise ed. but Drive has some faults.
I like 2-step authentication, integrated search etc. but Drive is not there yet.
Currently using Dropbox just for syncing “live” docs. As backup solution I use Crashplan.
Best regards,
Pietro
Gary, Dropbox offers 2 step verification. You need to go the the settings on Dropbox.com to activate it. It cannot be activated from the desktop client settings.
Thanks Stephen. That diminishes any obvious Google Drive security advantages over Dropbox
Sugarsync is better I think. How about putting them to the test?
Not sure if it’s better – each of us have different needs – but it’d be a great test. I wish I had more time to test Skydrive too.