

AeroFS is x87 faster than Dropbox in LAN syncing [video] - cool-RR
http://blog.ram.rachum.com/post/33073905775/aerofs-is-x87-faster-than-dropbox-in-lan-syncing

======
sepbot
People often misunderstand what the Dropbox LAN Sync does. The file needs to
be already in the cloud before it can be synced over LAN. This means that when
you add a new file, it will first get uploaded to Dropbox servers then
transferred to other computers over LAN. Considering that most home
connections are asynchronous (slow up, fast down) the entire processes gets
bottle-necked by that slow upload rate.

~~~
cool-RR
You've given an excellent answer to the question _Why is Dropbox's LAN Sync so
slow?_ but the more interesting question is _Why don't the Dropbox engineers
change how LAN Sync works so it won't be so slow anymore?_

~~~
yskchu
+1

Also, uploading the data to Dropbox server, and then downloading again, wastes
valuable quota for those under a data cap.

~~~
Dylan16807
No, it doesn't download it from the master server. It transfers directly
between the computers on the LAN. The only thing that has to go through the
Dropbox servers is the master file _list_.

------
antr
I love AeroFS. Although it is missing many of Dropbox's features (e.g. web
storage of files, better version history, etc), the fact that it is extremely
fast and there is no cap on P2P sync makes it my weapon of choice when sharing
files/folders with colleagues.

~~~
FireBeyond
Sounds like exactly what I need - and what I usually use Dropbox for.

If anyone could spare me an invitation...

~~~
cool-RR
I'll be happy to invite you, but I don't have your email address.

~~~
FireBeyond
robert@chromablue.net

------
martin-adams
What's the best way of writing this. Is it x87 or 87x faster? Thank goodness
it wasn't x86 faster as that would have confused me.

On a related note, I've been using Livedrive for a number of years now and
they have a lan transfer option to obtain a file over the network than over
the internet. I suspect however a lot of use cases are separated by the
internet and generally aren't on the same network.

What would be awesome however is if after the sync both computers were able to
contribute to uploading the file to the live server. So I could sync my files
over lan to my laptop, go to work, then have my home/work computer upload them
to the net, thus 2x quicker to store it in the cloud. But that would be a bit
of an edge use case I think.

~~~
mdellabitta
x87 is the original FPU instruction set of the x86 family, so time to be
confused again. But now you can be .75 confused instead of 1 confused.

~~~
lutusp
> But now you can be .75 confused instead of 1 confused.

A confusion index of 1.0 would be described as perfectly confused. But, as is
often said, nothing is perfect. :)

------
alistair75
Just tried this myself with a couple of 8.5MB MP3 files. One appeared on the
second machine in about a minute, the other in about a minute 30.

Not sure why this is taking upwards of 12 minutes for the OP.

~~~
tmx
OP probably didn't disable dropbox speed limiting - this is the default:

<http://i.imgur.com/wTWzG.png>

~~~
cool-RR
Thanks for that tip. I disabled the limiting now and it sped up from 11:42
minutes to 01:40 minutes! Now Dropbox is only x12.5 slower than AeroFS.

The real solution, of course, would be for Dropbox to transfer the file over
the LAN immediately before waiting for it to be uploaded to the Dropbox
servers.

~~~
flurian
That's not a solution, it's a design tradeoff. Dropbox's servers are the
"truth", and the software's clear goal is to get a copy on the servers. There
are many reasons for this--weird conflicts, inconsistencies, and so on--that
are much harder to resolve than if there is a copy on the servers.

Once that happens, other clients will ask to download from the servers, notice
that it's on the LAN already, and take it from there. I bet if you install a
new client on the same LAN, or share a folder between clients on the LAN, or
add a folder to selective sync, once the files are already there... it will be
a competitive speed.

------
mekwall
This is like comparing apples and oranges. I'm inclined to think that the
creator of this video is biased towards AeroFS.

~~~
cool-RR
Funny, I'm actually biased towards Dropbox. I use it for most of my stuff
because of the versioning and the Packrat feature. But there's no reason for
Dropbox not to do direct LAN syncing, and no reason for AeroFS not to offer
infinite versioning. It may be more complex to design, but definitely
feasible. So I don't think that this is an apples-vs-oranges comparison.

~~~
TillE
> But there's no reason for Dropbox not to do direct LAN syncing, and no
> reason for AeroFS not to offer infinite versioning.

Really, no reason? None at all?

For "infinite versioning", it's obvious - there's no upper bound on the amount
of data the server has to store. Storage space costs money.

As for no direct LAN syncing, someone's already mentioned the reason -
consistency. Syncing is already a hard problem, and it's dangerous to allow
more things to go wrong because the clients synced but the server didn't
receive all the data.

~~~
Dylan16807
So what if there's no upper bound? Treat it like normal data and charge the
normal price. Spideroak already does this.

------
stcredzero
What would this get someone who already has Dropbox and Air Drop on OS X?

Answer: compatibility! Now that walled gardens are going up, there's pain in
getting through the walls. If they can make this compatible with Dropbox, it
would be a great combination. There's also the possibility that Dropbox could
add Bonjour/Rendevous to their client side software, reducing AeroFS to just a
feature.

~~~
newman314
Not really, the attraction of AeroFS is not having a connection/reliance on
S3. So for something like 1Password syncing, it would be great not to have a
copy sitting somewhere in the cloud.

~~~
mikeash
If you use a strong master password, and given that 1Password uses a secure
key-derivation function, does it really matter if your 1Password file is
sitting somewhere in the cloud?

~~~
newman314
Yes.

My take on it is if there is no/little benefit of putting something in the
cloud, there is no reason to do so particularly if it's something security
related.

------
georgebashi
This is one of my major annoyances with Dropbox — I'd love to shift everything
to my Dropbox, but the slow sync speed is painful.

I signed up a long time ago for an AeroFS invite but had no joy. Anyone got
one they could share? I'd love to try this out.

~~~
cool-RR
Sent you an invite :)

~~~
checker659
Can I have an invite too? Pleeaassseee. :)

~~~
cool-RR
Sure, I'll just send it to the email address that you've conveniently included
in your profile. Oh wait :)

~~~
checker659
Ok. Updated. (Also, sorry!!)

~~~
cool-RR
Update: Got more invites, sent you one.

~~~
checker659
Thanks man!! You're awesome. :)

------
rgbrgb
What protocol does AeroFS use?

------
Hotspam
I would love an invite if anyone could spare one. My email address is
hotspam{at}gmail.com. I've been on the sign up list for over a year but
haven't heard a thing. Thanks in advance!

------
newman314
AeroFS looks cool but I'm not too keen on having to run Java just to run
AeroFS given that I had disabled Java on MacOS due to the recent exploits.

~~~
xyzzy123
I wouldn't worry about it.

The Java to be disabling is the Java browser plugin, which allows un-trusted
web sites to run applets in a sandbox on your machine. As you know, there have
been a lot of issues with Java sandboxing.

However, AeroFS runs locally (as far as I understand, I don't have an invite)
so should be fine as long as you trust the provenance of the code.

------
fox91
It's nonsense, they are 2 different technologies

