Mar

16

Windows Live SkyDrive Too Slow

Filed Under General Stuff, Technology

upset I’ve just bought a new notebook and I began thinking of ways to backup my files on this machine. Normally I’d be looking at my networked drive or perhaps buying myself a new external drive. But I decided to try the online option as I guessed these services must be better than when I last tried them a couple of years back. Plus the free storage space available is now big enough to cope with my needs.

I started my search somewhere obvious - Windows Live SkyDrive. I say obvious because I’ve been getting hit by their various ads whilst using Hotmail for a while now. I had done a quick scan around at the other big players in online storage as well and none of the names were exactly well known to me. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to invest time in a backup system I want a) it to be very secure b) it not to disappear one day. So my reasoning was that Microsoft’s offering would at least satisfy those criteria.

I’m not going to do a full review of the service here - I just want to talk about the main problem I found. The problem that sends me running off to buy an external drive - speed, or lack of. I did an experiment on two days at different times to allow for variations in service. I had 340 very small files that added up to about 0.5mb. I set my stopwatch and started uploading. The first day it took 35 minutes. The second day it took 41 minutes. Yes, that’s half a meg of data uploaded in well over 30 minutes.

That completely kills the idea for me and the notion that I could in fact use this type of service to access my files from various computers no matter where in the world I was. I guess the service would be good to do backups through the night or something, but it’s not really what I’m looking for.

So I had a quick read around to try and find another service that would handle the speed issue, but it seems they’re all the same. I’m now thinking I need to forget about the idea and revisit it in another year or two. Unless anyone can recommend the type of service I’d like to use in the comments below?


Photo Credit: conskeptical

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Comments

3 Responses to “Windows Live SkyDrive Too Slow”

  1. Jack on March 17th, 2008 11:50 am

    Can you apply a skydrive account for me?
    It is not available in my country.
    You can send me a Email and tell me the answer.
    Thank you very much!!

  2. Brian on May 5th, 2008 8:14 pm

    Totally agree, started a 4.8Mb file bakup and gave up after 45 mins. I hava a 20Mb connection with a 1Mb upload speed.
    This is slower than a big bag of slow things!
    I have had quicker medical operations than this.

  3. Tim on May 14th, 2008 8:22 pm

    Nonsense, I’ve uploaded about 30 mb in a minute.
    You either experienced a temporary problem with the service, or, I am afraid have troubles of uploading files :)

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