Instant Dropbox Uploads

In the past I have written about how I find Dropbox very useful.  If you were following this blog you would also know that I decided to store all my mp3's in my Dropbox folder/cloud.

Over the past 2 weeks I have discovered something quite unexpected with Dropbox.  When uploading files to your Dropbox that others have already uploaded to their own dropboxes , Dropbox recognises this and your files are instantly uploaded.

I first discovered this when the Gorillaz released their new album Plastic Beach.   As soon as this album was available I downloaded it and placed it in my Dropbox.  I had to look twice when instead of chugging away at 50k~ per second for the next hour the files uploaded in the blink of an eye.  Originally I thought this was a one off, a glitch,  a freak of nature, however the same thing happened last week with another new album release and this time it was not even a main stream album.

So it would seem that Dropbox checks all files that you select to upload to their servers and if they already have them they simply do a server side copy.  This is a pretty smart and clever use of resources.  Given the team at Dropbox are clever at using the resources available to them I think it would be safe to assume they do not copy the files on the server, but instead just simply reference them in a database which in addition to saving bandwidth from the upload also saves space on the servers.

So this got me thinking about the rumoured cloud service that Apple are working on for ITunes.  A music file cloud service lends itself to this technique perfectly.  After a short amount of time hundreds of thousands of users will upload their entire library to the ITunes cloud.  By the time I get around to it, I should be able to upload my 40gig~ of mp3's in less than an hour :)

I look forward to the day where I can upload my 25gig Blu Ray Rips.... Automagically.!!