Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#1

Post by nicoschuele » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 7:32 AM UTC

Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery
blog.nicoschuele.com

Re: Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#2

Post by lord_quas » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 7:46 AM UTC

Thats awful, one can only assume this affects MBP as well. I think I'll now only turn DB on whenever I'm on A/C.

Re: Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#3

Post by nicoschuele » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 8:04 AM UTC

lord_quas wrote: post #2

Thats awful, one can only assume this affects MBP as well. I think I'll now only turn DB on whenever I'm on A/C.

Yeah, it sucks big time. DB is at the center of my workflow. Having my git repository in it, my projects plans, etc. I just have to not forget to "turn on, sync, turn off, work, turn on sync, turn off".

On the other hand, I didn't notice any difference in battery consumption on my Windows 8 laptops. Who knows, maybe OS X Mavericks will change that with the way it handles processes?

Re: Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#4

Post by omarrr » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 8:24 AM UTC

> I use it to store my code repository [...] Not using Dropbox is not an option for me as I switch machines several times during the day.

I'd suggest you invest in a hosted git repo.

Re: Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#5

Post by nicoschuele » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 8:38 AM UTC

omarrr wrote: post #4

> I use it to store my code repository [...] Not using Dropbox is not an option for me as I switch machines several times during the day. I'd suggest you invest in a hosted git repo.

I store a lot more than just a git repo in Dropbox. I also use it to share files, etc. But yes, I'm starting to look at alternatives. Maybe I'll develop a small utility to push/pull/share files from my home NAS upon request rather than having a continuous process running in the background.

Re: Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#6

Post by tluyben2 » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 8:38 AM UTC

I see this problem happening only to me when it's used as code repository. Which is what he is doing. I had that for one project because the client didn't want to use git, but it's horrible. So, logically, when you have a lot of files changing all the time (compiling (xcode, eclipse), adding libraries (node, RoR)) you'll see dropbox taking over your computer. For all other uses it seems fine.

Note also that when you have the issue with a lot of small files, during/after dropbox is done, Finder / mds will jump to the top of your top indexing the files. I disabled mds in my projects directory and will never place active source directories in dropbox again.

Re: Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#7

Post by tluyben2 » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 8:40 AM UTC

nicoschuele wrote: post #5

omarrr wrote: post #4

> I use it to store my code repository [...] Not using Dropbox is not an option for me as I switch machines several times during the day. I'd suggest you invest in a hosted git repo.

I store a lot more than just a git repo in Dropbox. I also use it to share files, etc. But yes, I'm starting to look at alternatives. Maybe I'll develop a small utility to push/pull/share files from my home NAS upon request rather than having a continuous process running in the background.

You can also, what I did, switch dropbox off and switch it on only when you are connected to power for a sync. It's not ideal, but it works. I don't see how dropbox could do better though. If you do it manually to your NAS, you basically do the same as switching dropbox on/off or dropbox in a cronjob. Anything monitoring your file system and synching up with many small files will incur load like this.

Re: Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#8

Post by cnvogel » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 8:42 AM UTC

That finding might be quite interesting and all... but I'm thoroughly confused about that guy always quoting power consumption in mAh (which is the unit for electrica charge).

I'd also check if that guy's dropbox daemon(s) are stuck in an obvious loop. I'm logged on in my private server, and when it's idle there's hardly any activity on the dropbox threads, the main CPU consumer is one servicing what I suspect to be the main select() loop. And that thread basically stat()ing the .dropbox/config.dbx file every 2 seconds, and reads 16 bytes out of it. That should hardly be measureable in terms of power consumptions on a modern CPU.

Re: Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#9

Post by mtts » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 8:43 AM UTC

tluyben2 wrote: post #6

I see this problem happening only to me when it's used as code repository. Which is what he is doing. I had that for one project because the client didn't want to use git, but it's horrible. So, logically, when you have a lot of files changing all the time (compiling (xcode, eclipse), adding libraries (node, RoR)) you'll see dropbox taking over your computer. For all other uses it seems fine. Note also that when you…

Well, yes, but if you read the result of his tests even with syncing turned off Dropbox is still eating about 500 mAh.

And that is, I would say, rather strange.

Re: Dropbox will kill your insane MacBook Air 2013 battery

#10

Post by dalore » Wed, Jul 03, 2013, 8:45 AM UTC

nicoschuele wrote: post #5

omarrr wrote: post #4

> I use it to store my code repository [...] Not using Dropbox is not an option for me as I switch machines several times during the day. I'd suggest you invest in a hosted git repo.

I store a lot more than just a git repo in Dropbox. I also use it to share files, etc. But yes, I'm starting to look at alternatives. Maybe I'll develop a small utility to push/pull/share files from my home NAS upon request rather than having a continuous process running in the background.

git repo outside of dropbox to store code and changes, but use dropbox to share project files like docs etc. Works well.