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I recently setup an OwnCloud server. However, after installing the Sync Client I get very slow transfer rates. I might do 1GB a day. Is this just an issue with WEBDav protocol?

I've read that there is problems when syncing lots of small files. The disks are fine I checked the RAID.

Anyway to improve sync performance so I can actually add more then 1 computer to the server.

Jason
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    There's a good chance one of the limiting factors is the upstream speed of the network connection of the computer you are trying to sync from. – David Schwartz Feb 13 '14 at 22:20
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    I would assume that but I can push the same files to and from devices via other protocols way faster. ;/ -- Could not having enough RAM on the server be an issue? It's not ZFS it's just simple HFS+ format. – Jason Feb 13 '14 at 23:45
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    @FrankThornton are you uploading lots of little files or one very large file. Try comparing the two. I think you will find that owncloud is slow with lots of small files but decently fast with one large file. I think this is something that OwnCloud has been working to fix. – mikeazo Apr 08 '14 at 13:12
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    Yes, this is a bunch of small files and more research has shown it is a bug. – Jason Apr 08 '14 at 13:30
  • @FrankThornton do you have a link from your research which would be useful to readers (like me :) ? – sourcejedi Sep 27 '14 at 14:00
  • I wish I had the link saved but I forgot where I read it at. I think it was on SE. – Jason Sep 27 '14 at 14:24

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This is not a bug, this is a result of the fact that the synchronization of ownCloud in reality is really badly implemented.

First of all all of that stuff runs in PHP space in the web server, whatever you use, Apache with mod_php, Nginx or whatever.

ownCloud has been designed with the home user in mind, meaning the stuff should run everywhere. It runs ok if you only need to synchronize a few hundred files. If you need to synchronize more than that, in the range of thousands or ten thousands, the fundamental design flaws of ownCloud come to the light.

Meaning until recently it only uploaded files serialized, meaning one file after the other. Of course that's slow. Now they do parallel uploads, but that doesn't solve the problem yet of the poorly desigend sync component on the server and the poorly designed sync protocol.

And even with parallel file upload speed is sub par, and you still have the eternal problem of duplicate files en masse and whatever.

What ownCloud really needs is a standalone server sync component, running in whatever programming language, but exactly such a thing as a daemon.

As long as there is no such thing, ownCloud will always sound good in theory and be bad in praxis. This does include ownCloud 7.

If you need a fault proof opensource syncing solution which does scale well with thousands of files and runs reliable, ownCloud is definitely not the thing to use and you should take a look at the alternatives.

Marc Stürmer
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