WATCHOUT with Dropbox!!!

ramses2005 · Jul 30, 2010

Dropbox is an app that sincs up with multiple computers even iphone/ipod touch some documents you post (like hotmails Sky-Drive but way better). Its a great application but if your mac is getting slow, watch out for Dropbox. Usually it activates itself as a startup item so it starts when you boot ur computer (turn on) and because its synchronizing and checking for updates constantly it uses almost all ur CPU capacity. I recommend that you turn of this option at the Preferences>Accounts>Start Up Items and just use it when you need it, lets say 1 sinc per week or so...

YOU CAN SEE THATS NOT TURNED ON BY NOT SEEING THIS BOX IN THE MENU BAR!!

THE SECOND IMAGE SHOWS THE LIST OF START-UP ITEMS IF ITS NOT ON THE LIST IT MEANS THAT YOU HAVE TO START IT MANUALLY, IN OTHER WAYS YOU CAN TAKE IT OUT BY PRESSING THE "-" BUTTON!

vansmith · Jul 31, 2010

I have Dropbox open at startup and have never had problems with it excessively using up CPU resources. Are you sure that this is the issue and not something else starting at startup?

If I'm not mistaken, that frog icon in the menubar is for Azureus which from my own experience (and from others) is a resource hog.

bobtomay · Jul 31, 2010

Azureus or Vuze now, and yep, it'll eat up the resources.

ramses2005 · Jul 31, 2010

vansmith said:
I have Dropbox open at startup and have never had problems with it excessively using up CPU resources. Are you sure that this is the issue and not something else starting at startup?

If I'm not mistaken, that frog icon in the menubar is for Azureus which from my own experience (and from others) is a resource hog.

Yeah i know about the frog, i was just downloading a torrent but no, thats not the problem, even it isnt on startup items. The Dropbox app will eat up your resources because it is connected to internet every second even if its not uploading something it is connected and it will waste useful CPU and memory.
When your mac gets older you will start to notice that, and i recommend that you deactivate it from startup items, it isnt needed all the time just when you sinc something lets say once a week or so...

ramses2005 · Jul 31, 2010

bobtomay said:
Azureus or Vuze now, and yep, it'll eat up the resources.

yes it is Vuze (vuze is from Azureus so its the same thing) but the problem is dropbox not Vuze...

vansmith · Jul 31, 2010

I find that hard to believe. Right now, Dropbox is using between 0.1 and 0.2% of my CPU while utilizing only 44MB of RAM. I've had my MB on for days before and noticed little in terms of Dropbox usage. Do you have anything to back up your claim that Dropbox is overusing your CPU or using up too much memory?

RONE · Jul 31, 2010

My dropbox doesn't cause any problems. Thanks for trying to help, but now you're just scaring the sheeple.

IvanLasston · Jul 31, 2010

How much data do you have on dropbox? I found this in the dropbox FAQ. I would expect from this explanation that the more you put onto dropbox the more resources it is going to take. So as stated above for most people 40-50MB is what would be used.

Why is Dropbox using so much RAM?
Dropbox may seem like it doesn't need a lot of RAM to operate. The truth is: there's a lot of complexity under the hood!

For instance, Dropbox has to keep track of a lot of information about your files in order to make sure it can sync files quickly and efficiently. The more files you have in your Dropbox folder, the more memory Dropbox will need to keep track of them. Dropbox shouldn't use more than 40 or 50 MB of RAM unless you have tens of thousands of files in your Dropbox.

That said, we are constantly working on making Dropbox more memory efficient and we continue to have significant improvements with each major release. If you're daring, you can always try out the latest development build in our forums.

For Our Advanced Users
Want more details? Dropbox stores metadata on your files in RAM to prevent constant and expensive database lookups while syncing. The metadata includes paths to files in your Dropbox, checksums, modification times, etc... We are working hard on making this information more compact and are working on several fronts to improve memory usage. Our techniques are not limited to rewriting pieces of our source code and writing custom memory allocators.

TattooedMac · Jul 31, 2010

I find it hard to be DropBox as well

Mine is on par with vansmith.

Give us a screen shot of Activity Monitor and we might be able to help out a little more

Cheers

vansmith · Aug 1, 2010

How many files do you have syncing with Dropbox? If you have a large amount, perhaps it's time to consider a RAM upgrade or time to consider removing some of those files.

ramses2005 · Aug 1, 2010

it really shows up when you have old mac computers, im a system engineer, so i know why i say it. My father has a 6 year old iMac so, it was very very slow so i wnet into it and looked for dropbox and that was the solution, maybe it is because you do not have dropbox saturated with the file size and quantity but ill just tell you that dropbox updates each second to the internet, so it uses lots of memory its just a warning...

vansmith · Aug 1, 2010

Then don't have so many files hosted with Dropbox. I'm also skeptical of your claim about Dropbox. As far as I know, it doesn't sync with the server continuously but only does so when a file is changed in your Dropbox folder. Perhaps you're saving something to your Dropbox folder on a regular basis. If so, then find some other solution.

Ciakow · Dec 15, 2012

Totally a hog...

Hi,
I find this to be completely true for both my mbp 2008, 8gb, core2duo 3.6 (oldie)
and my new (9mnths) mba i7...

I pay dropbox a lot of money to keep my important files safe but it drains my resources and batteries. Usually leave the computer an at night where it will be constantly hot and between 75 and 92% !!!

screenshots included. (and be real... save Mb's in dropbox in stead of Gb's??? why would I pay for > 200Gb?)

screenshots included...

vansmith · Dec 15, 2012

I'm going to guess that this has something to do with the fact that you're downloading an excessive amount of data. According to that screenshot, you're downloading approximately 11.25GB of data. I'm going to guess then that the CPU usage is tied to the fact that it's downloading this much content. Pause the syncing and see if it still freaks out.

Ciakow · Dec 16, 2012

Hi, thanks for your reply.
I know it's because dropbox is busy with a lot of data. That is the reason why I bought such a large subscription. If I upload/download other large files, without DropBox, there is no problem.
I have to pause DropBox in the day, when it's down-/uploading a lot of data because its such a hog.
So, eventually, it will be synced.
Regards

4Eyes · Dec 18, 2012

I've experienced slowness with my Mac while running DropBox, too. I have it loaded on my Mac only when I'm working on projects that require it, and then I remove it.

Ramses2005, to stop Dropbox from loading at startup, I also needed to uncheck the Dropbox preference "Start Dropbox on system startup."

WATCHOUT with Dropbox!!!

ramses2005

Attachments

vansmith

Senior Member

bobtomay

,

ramses2005

ramses2005

vansmith

Senior Member

RONE

IvanLasston

TattooedMac

vansmith

Senior Member

ramses2005

vansmith

Senior Member

Ciakow

vansmith

Senior Member

Ciakow

4Eyes

Shop Amazon