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How to reduce traffic of Box Drive

  • May 23, 2025
  • 2 replies
  • 6 views
C
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How can I reduce traffic of box drive use ?
Please teach if there are any related settings.

 Recently, problem comes box drive traffic increases although users don't use file in box not so much.
 As temporary correspondence, management department had demanded to stop box drive use. However, box drive is very useful to connect to files in box directly and quickly when we attach file to mail and any systems.
 This information from box support (https://bit.ly/3TnIeqW) have only good setting of local drive management related to cache data. If information had been public in anywhere, please teach.

    2 replies

    C
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    Hi there, 

    Welcome to Box Community and glad to help! 

    My recommendation is to setup a cache limit for your machine. This way you can just allocate how much data Box Drive can cache into the selected machine. 

    Here's how to Modify the maximum cache limit:

    You can change Box Drive's maximum cache size limit from the default 25GB by following the steps below. We do not recommend setting the limit to below 5GB. Limiting the cache size too aggressively can degrade the end user experience.
     

    Windows    :
    1. Add a new DWORD registry value called MaximumCacheSize under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Box\Box.
    2. MaximumCacheSize should be set to an integer value representing the new cache limit in GB (for example, setting MaximumCacheSize's value to 6 would mean the cache max is 6GB).
    3. Quit and re-launch Box Drive after making this change.
    This new limit applies to all Windows users on the machine. Get more information on modifying Window's registry here:https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/310516/how-to-add--modify--or-delete-registry-subkeys-and-values-by-using-a
     
    To revert the limit, delete the MaximumCacheSize registry value and re-launch Box Drive.
     


    Mac    :

    Box Drive in File Provider Extension mode doesn't support the ability to configure maximum cache size.  In the FPE mode, macOS manages the caching functionality.

    Refer to Modes of operation in Mac to determine whether Box Drive is operating in kernel-based or FPE mode.

    1. Open the Terminal
    2. Run the command below. Replace Cache_Limit_Here with an integer representing the new cache limit in GB:
      defaults write com.box.desktop MaximumCacheSize Cache_Limit_Here
    3. Quit and re-launch Box Drive after running this command.
    This new limit applies only to the Mac user who ran the command. It does not apply to all Mac users on the machine.
     
    To revert the limit, run the following command in Terminal and re-launch Box Drive:
    defaults delete com.box.desktopMaximumCacheSize

    You can also head over to this link for more details. 

    Hope it helps! 

     

    C
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    Thank you for commenting.

    These correspondences of setting about Cache via registry had been changed already.
    We had problem that C drive is filled up by this chache and some staffs couldn't use some applications.
    By this correspondence, C drive problem had been solved. (Another way, some staffs changed box drive space C to D drive.)

    However, network traffic couldn't be reduced this correspondence.
    For avoid too much network load, we had log-out from box drive. And, we face some inefficiency cases due to without box drive.
    box Drive records many logs from our operations. We assume traffic problem may be improved if this specification change.

    In community and box PULSE, we found related topic. (I had voted, and our staffs had coopelated to vote so.)
    We expect to improve.

    << Reference : Box Drive too slow / limit index speed? >>
    https://www.voidtools.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=11918

    << Reference : Box Drive performance improvement request when using VDI >>
    https://pulse.box.com/forums/909778-help-shape-the-future-of-box/suggestions/46124908-box-drive-performance-improvement-request-when-usi

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