Ask HN: Why is uploading to Google Drive so slow?

[nomilk]

I'm attempting to upload 2TB to google drive.

My upload speed is 250mbps, so 200gb should take around 2 hours, but it takes 20h. I've tried on multiple different wifi networks and on different times/days for the past week.

yesterday I tried dropbox app on macOS, and the 200gb directory uploaded in well under 2h.

This differential is abstruse and I have no idea what's going on nor where to get help on this. The tl;dr is I'd like to keep using Google Drive because it's what I'm familiar with, but it seems upload speeds greater than 25mbps are not possible.

I realise I could "just wait". But I much prefer to understand what's going on; if this is a google policy, or if I'm doing something wrong.

FWIW I'm drop and dragging files from macOS to the google drive web interface. (I don't believe google has an official drive app for macOS app as Dropbox has).

Any improvements to my understanding or help on this are greatly appreciated.

[tornquist]

Google Drive has a macOS app like Dropbox. I’ve also found direct web uploads slow.

[nomilk → tornquist]

Thanks so much. For some reason when I searched App Store directly all I got was imitation (third party) google drive macOS apps, and am averse to giving out Google credentials willy nilly.

Thanks also for confirming direct uploads are slow for you too, helps me understand it’s less likely something unique to me.

[nomilk → nomilk]

In case this thread helps anyone else in the future, switching to using the Google Drive Desktop app (in my case for macOS, but it's on windows too), increased the speed by approximately 10x.

[RGamma]

rclone can access/mount Google Drive: https://rclone.org/drive/

[aborsy → RGamma]

Rclone can mount anything!

[ishankbg]

Because it's Google

[b20000]

because googlers are napping in their nap pods