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Does Dropbox = Battery Drain?

L

LostAggie

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Aug 15, 2011
510
163
Does Dropbox running all the time drain the battery? The first couple of days it seemed to be no issue but now my fan comes on and the battery really drops. I closed Dropbox and it seems fine again...
 
I have no issues with Dropbox at all and it has no impact worth mentioning on CPU cycles and battery life on my 2012 MBA. I have version 2.2.13 installed.
 
I remember seeing reports that some versions of dropbox were causing excessively high CPU load on Macs, and this might be what you're seeing. Curiously, I see that my macs are running version 2.2.13, but the current version that Dropbox is offering for download is version 2.0.26. Maybe they've pulled back to an earlier version because of this?
 
LostAggie said:
Does Dropbox running all the time drain the battery? The first couple of days it seemed to be no issue but now my fan comes on and the battery really drops. I closed Dropbox and it seems fine again...
Click to expand...
Having Dropbox running shouldn't have any noticeable impact on battery life, unless files are being transferred. I keep it running 24/7 and the only time it uses more than minimal resources is if changes are made to the Dropbox contents, requiring files to be synced. Make sure your Dropbox version is up to date.
 
Never had an issue with it and I've been using it since 2010 IIRC. I've always gotten 6-8 hours my 13" Pro, Air, and Retina.

There were some people who had it affect their battery life because their computers wouldn't sleep with the lid closed if DropBox was running, though.
 
Any processes including a sync would be a slight hit in the battery department. Whether it does or not, I highly doubt you would give up the convenience. I know I wouldn't.
 
When I need dropbox I have it running, If I need to sync something.

When I don't need it, I exit the application of course. It is noticeable battery-wise.

It takes only 3 second to run it again. Everything is ridiculously fast with SSD. There's just no point leaving anything on idle imo. But each to his own.

Hell, I rarely ever put my Air to Sleep. If I'm away for 10 mintues I'll just shut it down before, and set to re-open windows on log-in.

Seriously... it takes 10 seconds to boot.
 
I was looking in the activity monitor and it appears to be PhotoStream going crazy on CPU usage. I just shut it off in iPhoto so we shall see.
 
LostAggie said:
I was looking in the activity monitor and it appears to be PhotoStream going crazy on CPU usage. I just shut it off in iPhoto so we shall see.
Click to expand...

This seems to have fixed the issue with the battery. Not sure why it was doing that even with iPhoto closed. Dropbox is running fine in the background.
 
Actually, if you watch Activity Monitor while you're using your computer, you'll notice that Dropbox uses CPU even when you're not changing any of the files within your dropbox folder. There's the minor 0.2% usage for I suppose periodic checking with the server. But even if you're in finder and poking around in a non dropbox folder, CPU usage will ramp up to 10-20%. And of course if you're working on a file within Dropbox, the app will constantly be running.

I just ended up shutting it off. I don't have multiple computers in the house so there's really no need for a syncing service. For backup, I use Crashplan+ which has been excellent. It doesn't hog the CPU like dropbox does.
 
The problem with shutting dropbox off is forgetting to turn it back on. Do you want to lose data or potentially gain 0.03% in battery life?
 
Maybe I'm not using Dropbox correctly, but what do you mean lose data?

How would you lose data if dropbox was off?
 
Battery and CPU....

I dont know, but RAM yes. Sure thing when I let the Dropbox load the startup item, it consumes more RAM that I wanted for a little app....:confused:.....:eek:


:):apple:
 
I have had issues with it before and deleted it from machines. I have recently installed it on a new mac mini. It is not using much CPU but it is using a lot of RAM. It is using 104.5MB of real RAM, which is more than VMware which is running 10.6 server. It is the 6th highest user of RAM on the machine running its usual apps. It also has the highest number of threads of all apps at 30.
 
AXs said:
When I don't need it, I exit the application of course. It is noticeable battery-wise.
Click to expand...
If it is not synching files, exactly how can is be using lots of resources and therefore using the battery? Answer: it can't and it doesn't. On my 2012 MBA it uses between 0.0 and 0.1% of the CPU and up to 38 megs of memory which is insignificant, not 'noticeable'.
 
kodeman53 said:
If it is not synching files, exactly how can is be using lots of resources and therefore using the battery? Answer: it can't and it doesn't. On my 2012 MBA it uses between 0.0 and 0.1% of the CPU and up to 38 megs of memory which is insignificant, not 'noticeable'.
Click to expand...

That's just wrong. Open Activity Monitor then play around in Finder with files NOT in your Dropbox. CPU usage is WAY more than 0.1%.
 
Hopefully mavericks is out soon and you can see for yourself what dropbox is doing with your usage pattern.

Activity monitor now includes energy consumption by process :)
 
dazey said:
I have had issues with it before and deleted it from machines. I have recently installed it on a new mac mini. It is not using much CPU but it is using a lot of RAM. It is using 104.5MB of real RAM, which is more than VMware which is running 10.6 server. It is the 6th highest user of RAM on the machine running its usual apps. It also has the highest number of threads of all apps at 30.
Click to expand...

So how much RAM was allocated to your VM? Less than 104MB?! :rolleyes:
 
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