Back in the old days, people used to diligently save and organize their entire data on their personal computers.
This caused plenty of problems once they ran out of storage space or required the same data on different devices. This problem was solved by the inception of cloud storage. Cloud storage enabled people to store their data online, which could be accessed from different devices. It also proved to be an extremely handy backup option, in case the hard drive of a computer/ laptop went kaput!
Today, cloud storage is a burgeoning industry with plenty of players in it. One of the most popular ones is Google Drive, no surprises there. This is because of the bouquet of features it offers to it users, the most prominent of them being 15 GB of storage space absolutely free! It can easily be accessed on a computer/ tablet as well as a smartphone. Heck, it also facilitates users to easily edit their documents online without any limitations. The user can continue to work on the document, spreadsheet, presentation and the changes get saved in real time!
On the flip side, Google Drive also has some negative aspects, Mac users in particular face certain problems when working on Google Drive in terms of speed.
Quite frequently, Mac users are overheard on various forums complaining about the extremely slow speed with which data is synced to Google Drive. However, with a little tweaking, you can improve the overall experience. Let’s jump right into the solutions that will help you in manually speeding up Google Drive on Mac devices.
Google Drive’s Inbuilt Settings
Google Drive comes along with certain default configuration settings that are aimed to satisfy the requirements of the general user. You can manually alter these configuration settings to your advantage. To do this, simply go to the taskbar, right-click the Google Drive icon and select Preferences. In the Advanced tab, look up for Proxy settings. Select Direct connection here and then change the Bandwidth settings to Don’t limit for both Download Rate and Upload Rate. This will ensure that bandwidth isn’t limited to a certain threshold value, and is rather freed up of any caps.
Configure LAN Settings on Your Device
Another helpful tweak in this scenario is to alter the LAN settings. Go to Control Panel, select Internet Options and switch to Connections tab, Now select LAN settings and enable automatic detection.
Enable Offline Availability
Every time you want to access a file stored in the cloud, the file is first loaded and only then are you able to access it. This process can be speeded up if you enable offline availability for Google Drive. This way you can download the important and frequently accessed files from the cloud storage on to your computer. The method significantly improves access time, even though it technically does not affect download speed.
Terminate Other Unnecessary Programs
At all times, various programs continue to operate in the background and consume bandwidth. This might affect the performance of the program you most desperately want to perform at it’s best, due to lack of resources. Therefore it is recommended to periodically view the list of programs operating in the background and exit all the unwanted ones. You can do this by accessing the Task Manager and switching to the Performance tab. Now select Resource Monitor and in the Networks tab, you will be able to view the list of programs consuming bandwidth on your device. Furthermore, you can even sort these programs in terms of bandwidth consumed. This will allow you to prioritize which programs you want to close and which ones can continue to operate. You can close a program by right-clicking on it and selecting End task. This basically ensures that the entire/ maximum bandwidth is reserved for Google Drive.
Faster Internet Connection
Finally, nothing can improve your Google Drive experience than a faster Internet connection. A quality Internet connection improves the upload and download speed improve on Google Drive like nothing else! These manual solutions work, but to a certain extent. Certain times the Internet speed becomes a limiting factor, and you must subscribe to a good quality connection to optimize your Google Drive experience on Mac.
