> https://www.dropbox.com/help/space/file-storage-limit
They claim a limit of around 300,000 files - this user apparently has 700,000 files.
The Google sync client doesn't have a hard limit per se, but yes, the performance does similarly decline after a certain point - it depends on a number of factors, but it's possibly at 700,000 that you would see issues. It should be able to comfortably handle 300,000 though.
In fact, most Desktop sync clients experience similar things.
I do know this is something we're aware of and are actively improving. In fact, we have a new Backup and Sync client that we announced recently and should be going GA shortly.
There's no details I have to contact this specific customer to see if I can intercede, but if anybody knows, please comment here.
(Disclaimer: I work for Google, but any comments above are my own).
As a result it has at most 3.5 gigs of memory for the entire system, and e.g. on windows this will limit a single process to 2 gigs. If the sync client keeps some kind of in-memory representation of your files (a very reasonable thing to do for the vast majority of clients), and if you have 700,000 files, and assuming that folder references magically take up no space and that the sync client uses no other memory whatsoever, that's less than 3k per file representation before you crash.
If that is indeed contributing to the problem, it's most likely just a case of doing what's optimal for normal workloads, and simply not having engineered a backup solution for cases which fall so far outside of your expected usage that it didn't seem worth considering at the onset. This kind of change would also be very non-trivial to engineer, likely requiring a rather large amount of refactoring.
We could call it "Postgresql". Or even "Sqlite".
"Well, because it is submersed in a marine environment, I've always called it the Going-Under-The-Water-Safely Device."
-- Leonard da Quirm
RDMBS are the "accesses-the-data-safely" device. This is a failure of architecture.
Note that even you said "service" in your description of what it is.
If the OP was actually concerned with finding a solution to their problem (which is absolutely an edge case) and not just being a squeaky wheel, they'd pay $30 for InSync or find another free tool that syncs with Google Drive. The Google app is a bonus provided by Google to make the use of their service easier. The OP complaining about being a paying customer is pointless because what they're paying for is still completely useable.
There is no way to sync a device without an app. The app is not a bonus, it is a core feature of the service.
You just assert this as if it was self-evident, but it's not. The same feature can be offered for free and as a paid component of a package, just like the same code can be licensed to some under the GPL and to others under a proprietary license.
In this case, syncing is part of the service being purchased, and the means to achieve that is absolutely part of the package, even if it's also offered for free to others.
If a video game publisher sells a game for Mac and Windows, and one of those platforms doesn't work, then the affected customer is entitled either to customer support or a refund. The advertised product (native client on a certain platform) isn't working as advertised.
If the desktop client is failing, then he's not getting what is promised "on the box" (or in the feature set advertised on google.com).
They sell that client pretty hard btw: https://support.google.com/a/answer/2490101?hl=en
To use the full power of Google Drive, you should install Google Drive for Mac/PC, a desktop sync client. This synchronizes any or all your files to Google Drive on the web, making them available anywhere, at any time, on any device. It also provides secure, cloud-based storage for your files.
The issue isn't so much as the client is failing - but that it wasn't designed to handle their edge-case - and trying to sync 700,000+ items, or 700GB worth of files to your desktop is definitely at the edges.
Other desktop sync clients (e.g. Box.net or Dropbox) exhibit similar performance characteristics - e.g. Dropbox advertise a limit of around 300,000 files (https://www.dropbox.com/help/space/file-storage-limit). So this isn't something specific to us.
For us, I know there isn't a hard limit per se, but there are memory limitations, due to this being a 32-bit binary. So things like the user's environment, and the length of certain fields could also play a factor.
However, it is something that I know several smart people are chipping away at steadily - in fact, there's a new "Backup and Sync client" we announced a month or so ago, which is launching any day now. It's basically Drive Sync Client 2.0.
If the client allows you do do something, and you do it, and it causes the client to break, that is 100% a "failure"
If someone was complaining that an Amazon S3 application was broken, that would be a different story.