File Upload Speed

[Mike Kober]

I am having issues with the File Upload control for sending files to the
server via HTTP.

The speed of the upload is often between 20kbs and 40kbs. If I use the LAN
at work to the server, it runs over 2.3mbs. The slow speeds are when using
multiple providers including RoadRunner and DSL.

One test instance of a 40mb file showed it running at about 20kbs for about
halfway, then it burst up to 500kbs for the rest of the file.

Why? Is there a way to correct this behavior.

I've tested the uploads from IE6, IE7, and Firefox with the same results.

I'm having the problem whether I'm using the FileUpload control from
Microsoft in VS2005, or the Telerik control (which essentially uses the MS
control and adds extensible behavior to it).

Any help or clues are appreciated!

 

[Mark Fitzpatrick]

Are you getting 20 to 40 kilobits or kilobytes per second? Something to keep
in mind, DSL is damned slow for upload. Most consumer connections are
designed for speed in one direction, from the web server to your computer.
For most home users it's not a problem since they are not uploading with
frequency. Commercial accounts are a whole other story as they usually offer
more balanced results. Running into bursts of huge speed can be several
factors. One, it could simply be a miscalculation. For smaller files, or for
files that have some stumbling periods where the upload was stalled, it's
easy for it to seem like a ridiculous amount once it gets up to full speed.
Two, perhaps it cached some of the upload previously so it appears as if
it's moving faster when actually, since the file is in cache somewhere it's
appearing as if it's shooting it out the door faster. The most likely issue
though is simly the fact that your bandwidth is very limited upstream. 20 to
40 kilobits per second is very low. this is only 4 or 8 times greater than a
56k modem, wich is 5.6 kilobits per second. If it's 20 to 40 KiloBytes we're
talking a whole different order of magnitute and probably much closer to
what the DSL line's max limit is. For example, a DSL account that rates it's
connection speed as 384 to 512 kilobits per second is really about 40 to 50
KiloBytes per second. Those numbers tend to be more burst speed as opposed
to sustained speeds. A lot of broadband networks also have some limited
connection sharing at the main junction so that can also be limiting. In
other words, that number is affected by how many connections that are on
that block are actually active and in use. during high usage times that
number will diminish as the overall bandwidth is divided up among numerous
users. It sounds like you're actually pretty close to the norm for those
lines though so there's nothing really to worry about.

 

[Kevin.Newsted]

Some ISP providers "cheat" their customers about their upload speed.
Typically, download speeds are much faster and upload speeds can be up
to 1/10 of the download speed, but this fact is typically not
mentioned anyware. I recently found out a good way to measure upload
speed (I got the link from Digg)

Digg article:
http://news.com.com/2061-11200_3-6105614.html?tag=newsmap

Actual site:
http://www.speedtest.net/

Here you can check out your upload speed and then contact your ISP. By
the way, I am also using telerik's r.a.d.upload control and it does
not usre the built-in file upload mechanism in ASP.NET, but rather an
AJAX based approach which can be much faster (depending on settings,
you can choose larger buffer for upload speeds). You can ask the
telerik guys for details in their support forums.

~Kevin