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The Dropbox daemon wakes up every 10-15 seconds, uses 15% of the CPU then goes back to sleep. All this without any files changed or the index being affected. On 10.8, 10.9 with official versions and betas. Noticeable because I am on an older C2D MacBook Pro.
Wondering whether it's a side effect of something else installed e.g. iStat Menus.
The only takeaway is that his power usage shouldn't be that high with Dropbox idling/paused. But given that he's * surprised at it using a lot of power when doing the initial sync * decided to have a git repo inside Dropbox (just don't do it, you will run into trouble; and it will cause heavy sync activity, thus waking CPU and wifi) * using a unit of capacity to express power consumption I'm not sure I trust his meth…
I had this happen in the past too and found it to be the result of two issues: 1) Using dropbox to house a very large git repo with massive changes and tons of branches... Every time I switched branches, the hundreds of files would change and obviously kick off a major sync job. 2) There were a few files in a folder than had the owner set to the wrong owner and Dropbox couldn't get permission to access them. This cau…
> Using dropbox to house a very large git repo with massive changes and tons of branches... Every time I switched branches, the hundreds of files would change and obviously kick off a major sync job. I really have to say honestly: no shit. Sorry if i sound crass but really? When you use an arbitrary piece of software to automatically modify 100s of files the piece of software designed to detect that exact event has d…
I had this happen in the past too and found it to be the result of two issues: 1) Using dropbox to house a very large git repo with massive changes and tons of branches... Every time I switched branches, the hundreds of files would change and obviously kick off a major sync job. 2) There were a few files in a folder than had the owner set to the wrong owner and Dropbox couldn't get permission to access them. This cau…
> Using dropbox to house a very large git repo with massive changes and tons of branches... Every time I switched branches, the hundreds of files would change and obviously kick off a major sync job. I really have to say honestly: no shit. Sorry if i sound crass but really? When you use an arbitrary piece of software to automatically modify 100s of files the piece of software designed to detect that exact event has d…
Which Dropbox client version are we talking about?
> 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 annex add myfile
$ git annex copy --to=NAS myfile
$ git annex get myotherfile
$ git annex drop --from=NAS myotherfile
$ git annex initremote NAS type=rsync \
rsyncurl=rsync://example.com/myrsync encryption=
Last I tested, Dropbox consumed CPU for ANY changes ANYWHERE in your filesystem, not just within the Dropbox folder. So its (slow) code processed changes even when you untarred a large set of files somewhere in /tmp.
I also stopped using Dropbox for storing my code because of that — it's nearly useless, as it consumes so much CPU and eats so much battery life, that it simply isn't worth the effort.
Another problem with Dropbox is that upon login it indexes the entire Dropbox, which if you have an HDD basically kills the machine for several minutes, e.g. you can't do anything else. That happens to me on a Mac Pro. On an SSD-equipped MacBook things are better, but it's still a monstrous operation.
And to everyone that says you should not store code in dropbox: a) there are good and legitimate reasons for doing so, b) dropbox could work a little more on optimizing CPU usage instead of adding "save your photos to Dropbox" features.
The only takeaway is that his power usage shouldn't be that high with Dropbox idling/paused. But given that he's * surprised at it using a lot of power when doing the initial sync * decided to have a git repo inside Dropbox (just don't do it, you will run into trouble; and it will cause heavy sync activity, thus waking CPU and wifi) * using a unit of capacity to express power consumption I'm not sure I trust his meth…
As a side note, Dropbox behaves differently on OS X. I've never noticed this issue on Windows 8 machines.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It already exists, it's called git annex. It uses git to keep track of where files are (but doesn't check them in), so you can just do: $ git annex add myfile $ git annex copy --to=NAS myfile $ git annex get myotherfile $ git annex drop --from=NAS myotherfile If the NAS has rsync support, you can add it with a single command: $ git annex initremote NAS type=rsync \ rsyncurl=rsync://example.com/myrsync encryption= htt…