FTP Performance Tips

To optimize file transfers to and from Files.com, we strongly recommend using the Files.com Desktop App or one of the other options listed on our Preferred Apps for File Transfer page. These native apps are many times faster and more reliable than FTP.

If you are using FTP to meet the requirements of vendor or counterparty, the steps below will help you get the most out of FTP.

Use Many Parallel Connections

Set the number of simultaneous connections to 10-25 or the maximum supported by your FTP app. Consult your app's instructions for how to increase the limit; this is usually referred to as the number of connections or transfers.

Increasing the number of simultaneous connections will help when uploading multiple files at the same time but will not have any effect when uploading a single file. In contrast, the official Desktop app or CLI can transfer a single file in parallel, which is one reason we recommend Files.com apps for file transfers.

Simultaneous FTP Connections Are Not Compatible with 2FA

When using 2FA with FTP, you need to disable any parallelism in your FTP app, because 2FA is only valid for one connection at a time.

Minimize Network Latency

Network latency is measured as the round-trip delay between sending data across a network and receiving a reply that the data was received. Higher latency, also known as "lag", can be caused by:

• physical limitations, such as your physical network connection.
• how much data is currently saturating your network connection.
• the network distance between you and your destination.
• network tools and software that regulate or restrict bandwidth usage.

Network latency has a large impact on FTP performance. Whenever possible, use the best physical network available to you and try and achieve the shortest network distance possible.

Use The Best Physical Network Available To You

For example, choose a physical ethernet connection over a Wi-Fi connection.

Use The Shortest Network Distance Possible

Ideally, you should be in the same geographic region as the destination that you are connecting to. Using VPNs or network proxies that are located in other geographic regions will always add latency. For example, if you are located in the EU, the FTP destination is also located in the EU, but your VPN is located in the US then all your data will be routed through the US which will cause much higher latency despite the FTP destination being geographically close to you.

Multi-Region or Remote Server Mount Considerations

Files.com supports accessing files stored in multiple regions or on multiple remote servers from one unified FTP connection. While this is incredibly powerful and enables many unique capabilities, it can also create performance challenges in FTP.

When accessing files in multiple regions or on multiple remote servers from one single connection, we recommend switching to a Files.com CLI, SDK, or Desktop app, which are optimized for multi-region scenarios.

Custom Domain Considerations

Files.com custom domains are always hosted only in a single region. This means that when you are not physically located near the region where your custom domain is hosted, FTP performance will generally be awful.

We recommend testing connections to app.files.com rather than your custom domain when trying to use SFTP from a region other than the region where the domain is hosted. This may increase FTP performance by reducing network latency dramatically. The app.files.com domain is available in many different geographies. app.files.com is not available if your Files.com site uses a Custom username namespace or has disabled global acceleration features.

Performance is even worse when a Files.com site's custom domain is in one region, you are accessing files located in another region, and your FTP client is in a third region. In complicated cross-region cases like this, we strongly recommend switching to a Files.com CLI, SDK, or Desktop app, which are optimized for multi-region scenarios.