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Google Drive is failing on me with an incredibly slow upload speed (my internet connection is 100 MBit up / down so it's not to blame). Dropbox appears to have an identical issue. Skype won't accept files over 300 Mb. My ISP will not easily let me have a static IP, meaning the router external IP isn't of the type that you can SSH into. The other system is in the same position regarding router IP and ISP. Hence, only direct connection type of systems are available.

Is there any way to solve the problem? A paid service will suffice as well as soon as it's not required to pay a year ahead.

iksemyonov
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  • Two Windows systems being how far apart physically? Something line a site VPN or perhaps an FTP connection could work as well. There are a lot of options available but it depend on what you're working with to know what would apply best in your case I suppose. – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style Mar 04 '17 at 17:16
  • @MagicallyDelicous Two neighboring towns. So, physically separated. FTP would require an external IP AFAIU? A solution that would be as hassle-free as possible would be best, but on both ends there are technically literate persons. – iksemyonov Mar 04 '17 at 17:23
  • You might look into or consider setting up some sort of Dynamic DNS and just have a service running on the listening side to register the DDNS for the device so it'll work regardless of the public IP. You could do a little research and testing with some sort of DDNS service e.g. http://www.noip.com/free and the same with a free FTP server service and client setup but you could get something setup for sure that would work e.g. https://filezilla-project.org/ and https://winscp.net/eng/download.php... Unfortunately I don't have something simple and quick that I can think of at the moment. – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style Mar 04 '17 at 17:28
  • Yeah, that's basically going down the way of fooling the dynamic IP thing. Then again, look at TeamViewer: it somehow works with a dynamic IP doesn't it? – iksemyonov Mar 04 '17 at 17:31
  • With Team Viewer it checks in with a server from the client you launch it on, and then from another machine you actually connect to that server that then points it back to the client that has that session established. It you had something setup like that, then that'd work as well but something on one of the two sides needs to be setup so you can connect to the other in some fashion. I've not tested with large 5 GB file with Google Drive or Drop Box but I know FTP works well with large files. – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style Mar 04 '17 at 17:35
  • Please consider SFTP instead of FTP as it's way easier to setup since it needs only one port. Moreover, if the file transfer is only occasional, you don't need to setup dynamic DNS and can simply use the external dynamic ip. I don't know if Teamviewer answers your question as it involves a third party servers: so does another option I would recommend (as it potentially could be used for much more than file transfer): renting shared web space or VPS (look for some cheap ones on lowendtalk.com). – simlev Mar 04 '17 at 19:24
  • If you want to know which file sharing service would be faster than Gdrive and Dropbox, you would neet to test the speeds from your location. Amazon Drive and WeTransfer have a good reputation in this regard. – simlev Mar 04 '17 at 19:35
  • Even easier than SFTP is [hfs](http://www.rejetto.com/hfs): just expose port 80. – simlev Mar 04 '17 at 21:38

4 Answers4

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I use Resilio Sync (formerly Bittorent Sync). It is free for non-business use and works extremely well with large files and multiple locations.

Keltari
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  • Or syncthing, which is a similar software. They both use third party servers for nat traversal but then the actual file transfer should be direct between the source and the destination. – simlev Mar 04 '17 at 19:38
  • I was going to answer this. I use this a *lot* since it mostly works well, and runs on everything and the kitchen sink. Its also rediculously easy once you have a way to send the keys. – Journeyman Geek Mar 05 '17 at 09:14
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Solving your problem without running into dynamic IP issues is using the cloud services you mentioned in your question. You just have to wait until the files are uploaded. The upload speed of 100 MBit/s is enough to use those (free) cloud services because normally they use only a small bandwidth between 500 kB/s and 2 MB/s. This seems to be independent from the maximum upload speed (my upload speed is 1000 MBit/s). Could be that in a paid cloud service the upload speed is improved compared to the free version.

I made the best experiences in the last months with OneDrive (free). I shared several ISO and video files (about 4-5 GB) between different computers (dynamic IPs), and the files seemed to be uploaded with about 1 MB/s. For a 5 GB file it took about 1,5-2 h to finish.

Thorsten Albrecht
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Dynamic IP addressing really isn't an issue. Most standard cable modems allow you to set up port forwarding, and in nearly 20 years of my own personal experience, your IP address from a cable ISP is likely to stay the same for months at a time, if not years. If you don't know what your external IP address is, there are many sites that can tell you, such as IP Chicken.

You mention that both of your friends are technically illiterate. But are you in a position that you can visit one of them personally and directly interact with the computer? If so, I would do this:

First you'll need to forward port 22 on the modem to the internal IP address. This is to let SSH/SFTP through. Then, boot the PC to a live Linux CD such as Knoppix. Turn on the SSH server, and create an account. Figure out what the local path is to the file that you want to share.

Then, call your other friend, and verbally walk him through the process of installing the Filezilla FTP client, and then filling in the connection information (IP address, credentials, and port 22). He should be able to navigate to the file and download it.

Charles Burge
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  • Unless it's a typo, he wrote: "on both ends there are technically literate persons". – simlev Mar 04 '17 at 21:12
  • I saw that, but it wasn't clear if he was including himself as one of those ends. I assumed he's a third party helping 2 friends. Maybe that was an incorrect assumption. – Charles Burge Mar 04 '17 at 21:30
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If you just need to share 1 file use Teamviewer. Set up on both sides and use TV file sharing. It'll get the job done in fair fashion. It may not be the absolute fastest but it should be respectably fast relative to your internet connection and much easier than dealing with opening ports or setting up FTP or other servers on either end.

JoelAZ
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