I have no indexed data so I should be fine.
I made a test database to try things out. I have noticed that the upload speed was 2MB/s on average, way less than the 50MB/s my optical fiber network allows, and the download speed on the second computer was 7.5MB/s, still way less than the 100MB/s allowed by my network. I’m not sure what the reason is. I see no CPU bottleneck that would be explained by the encryption. I also made sure to remove the upload bandwidth limit in Dropbox preferences (no download limit by default). By the way, the encryption layer offered by DTPO is a great option—take that, Condi!
For a better sync speed between my laptop and my desktop in case they’re on the same network, and for a wider reach when they’re apart, I’d like to keep both the direct sync method activated on my laptop (my desktop being the server) and the Dropbox method activated on both.
In the small test setup that I made with an empty database, when I add a very big file on the desktop computer, it triggers the slow Dropbox sync and, during that long time, the laptop regularly tries to do a direct sync (automatic setting) but says that the remote (desktop) database is busy.
Then, after the upload of the big file has been made to the Dropbox sync store by the desktop, the laptop starts to slowly download the big file from Dropbox instead of using direct sync.
So, in my experience, it seems that DTPO starts to sync from the top of the list of sync methods, and I cannot find a way to reorder how syncs are attempted (the same way you can reorder networks in macOS Preferences).
It works but it’s not convenient to disable automatic syncs (and uncheck the “on exit / deactivation” checkbox) in order to manually trigger the right sync method because when on the local network, I would have to manually trigger the direct sync for better speed, wait for it to complete (indeed quite quickly), then trigger the Dropbox sync so that I don’t have to remember to do a direct sync on my iPhone or iPad before leaving. Also making it manual would lose the automatic backup to a local sync store that I setup on the desktop, and overall be prone to mistakes and complicated.
Setting a different sync period for each method would mostly solve the issue (every minute for direct sync on the laptop, every 15 minutes for Dropbox on laptop and desktop, automatic for local database backup on desktop), unfortunately it’s not possible.
There must be a better way for a simple use case as mine. Am I missing something?
the laptop starts to slowly download the big file from Dropbox instead of using direct sync.
You should not have local sync data on your machine.
Please read the In & Out > Sync > Dropbox section of the help about this.
Also, a ”very large file” will be chunked and transmitted in pieces. This is the norm and how sync has worked for a long time.
I read three times the help page on sync. I have excluded the DEVONthink Packet Sync from the synchronized folders on both computers. I meant that the laptop took its time to download from the remote Dropbox server through the Dropbox DT connector (not the Dropbox app).
I saw that the big file was chunked, I just did so that I would have the time to mesure the average speed and to give me enough time to see the chronology of the sync methods.