Is there a performance hit to local file access with dropbox?

Question

I've been considering using dropbox for a few reasons, since it seems to solve a lot of potential headaches. However, one thing I didn't find a lot of information on were the drawbacks from a performance perspective. What sort of drawbacks from a performance standpoint can I expect when interacting with files inside my dropbox folder?

Two examples where this might be a concern:

1) Modifying a few hundred files and then saving

2) Opening a drop box folder on a pc which hasn't been used in a while (less concerned about this one).

Answer 1

It depends on what you consider a performance hit. If you save/modify a few hundred files then dropbox is going to upload a few hundred files. So if your connection is weak/slow or your cpu isn't up to par then yes you could see a performance hit.

As to your second question, again you will see a performance hit on the network side. If dropbox has to download a lot of files or check to see if it has to download a lot of files your network connection could take a hit if its slow or weak.

But as to actual overhead you should not see any real performance hits, but also remember Dropbox stores everything and sends every in the clear. So for security standpoints you might want to check out a different option.