I have the paid version of Dropbox always running - it’s a crucial part of my workflow. You can set bandwidth limits. I’d like to get people’s opinions on whether it’s a good idea to do so, and any experiences people have had with it.
I wouldn’t unless you’re on a slow connection, or you’re temporarily doing a transfer or stream that needs almost all the bandwidth and you’re noticing problems. Dropbox is good about not saturating a typical connection.
2 Likes
I agree with cornchip. What sort of connection do you have? Any sort of high speed connection and the bandwidth used by Dropbox will appear tiny. If you have a dial-up connection that would be another story.
1 Like
Only if you’re uploading/downloading/syncing a very large amount of data and you need to use the internet/your machine for other things while that is going on.
Generally if I set a bandwidth limit on an app like this it will only be when setting up a new machine and it’s about to sync everything to the local disk.
Casual syncing while you work is in most cases not going to be a bandwidth challenge - except perhaps if you work with very large files like video, or 3D rendering. Even then, I would probably only enable throttling if I were actually experiencing performance issues on other network actions, and then as @SpivR suggests, just temporarily disabling syncing and essentially deferring the sync to a more convenient time may be the better option anyway.
Or, don’t move lots of huge files into Dropbox if you are or expect to have video calls. Usually Dropbox syncs fast enough as to make it imperceptible.
2 Likes
All of my business files live in Dropbox and I use Zoom day in and day out. I’ve never had bandwidth problems with either app.
Some routers have QoS (Quality of service) pre set settings to prioritize voice/video calls for example. You would never notice an issue on your client (Mac).
I usually never set bandwidth limits for apps. But could imagine it makes sense in some edge cases or when your connection bandwidth it really low.
Just try without limit. You can always set these limits later if you notice issues in other apps or other devices on the same network.
I’ve occasionally set bandwidth limits inside various apps and then become very frustrated a few weeks later - until I suddenly realise that the limit was never removed. I’d now rather invest in improving my connection speed with better hardware / better ISP plan.