Speed Tests
This page allows you to test the speed of your connection to our servers, which can be useful for troubleshooting purposes.
Keep in mind that the test results are limited by the slowest part of the connection between our servers and your computer. If your Internet connection is slow, or your ISP has an overloaded router between your computer and our data center, the test may show a slow speed even if our servers are able to send data to other people much more quickly.
Speed test
This test uses your browser’s Java plugin. Be sure to use it when your Internet connection is otherwise completely idle.
Is your FTP program or browser showing a slower speed?
Some programs show speeds in kilobytes (KB) per second, instead of kilobits (Kb) per second. The speed tests above, and the speeds quoted by your ISP, use kilobits.
A kilobyte is 8 times larger than a kilobit, so 150 KB per second is 1200 Kb per second, for example. Make sure you're comparing the same units.
Graphing the load time of your Web site
You can use a free tool from WebPageTest to measure the speed of your Web site (whether it's on our servers or the servers of another company).
The tool measures how long it takes for each item on a page to load, and gives you tips that will help you improve the speed. Our pages about enabling FastCGI for PHP scripts, using mod_expires to increase cache times and using mod_deflate to compress files with gzip will probably help.
Why is FTP slow when I transfer lots of small files?
FTP is fairly inefficient when transferring lots of small files. It establishes a new connection for each file, and at least five “packets” of data need to be sent between the server and your computer for each connection.
Each packet takes a certain amount of time (“latency”) to reach our servers, even if the packet is small. This latency is based on your geographical location and the number of “hops” (network routers) that the packet needs to pass through.
If the latency between your computer and our servers is, say, 50 milliseconds, then each connection will take at least a quarter of a second (five times .05 seconds), no matter what speed your cable or DSL modem is.
For example, if you have an 8 megabit-per-second cable modem connection, you might do a little math and expect to be able to send a thousand 1 KB files (one million bytes total) per second. But because of the latency for each connection, you’ll only be able to send four files per second, no matter how small they are.
If you want to improve the upload speed, there are a few alternatives available. For example, you could use SFTP, rsync over SSH or SCP. Each of these sends multiple files over a single connection, eliminating the overhead.
Another option is to zip the files together and upload the whole “.zip” file. You can then make a shell connection and unzip the files directly on our server.
Comparing speeds to other locations
If you want to compare this speed to other locations on the Internet, the DSL Reports speed test Web site offers both Flash speed tests and Java speed tests.
By the way, the speed test programs above are provided courtesy of AuditMyPC.com, a site that offers several useful tools for Webmasters and computer owners.