Overview
When downloading large files through a web browser, users might encounter issues such as the download operation not progressing, crashing, or failing to complete. One common cause of these problems is the lack of efficient multi-threading support in many browsers. This article explains why this happens and offers some practical advice for handling these issues.
Understanding Multi-Threading and Browsers
What is Multi-Threading?
Multi-threading is a technique that allows a program to perform multiple operations simultaneously. Instead of executing tasks one at a time, a multi-threaded application can manage several tasks concurrently by using different threads of execution.
How Browsers Handle Downloads
Most web browsers download files using a single thread. This means that the entire download process happens sequentially rather than in parallel. For small number of files will smaller sizes, this is usually not an issue. However, with large files, this can lead to performance problems.
Why Heavy Data Downloads Cause Issues
Single-Threaded Downloads: Since browsers typically use a single thread for downloading, large files can overwhelm this thread. This leads to slow download speeds, increased likelihood of timeouts, or even crashes if the thread becomes overloaded.
Memory Management: Handling large files in a single thread can also put significant pressure on the browser's memory management. This might cause the browser to hang or crash if it cannot efficiently allocate or manage the required memory.
Network Stability: Large downloads are more sensitive to network fluctuations. A single-threaded download process may not handle temporary network interruptions well, leading to incomplete downloads or crashes.
Browser Resource Allocation: During heavy data transfers, the browser may need to use a lot of CPU and memory resources. If the system's resources are limited or if other applications are consuming significant resources, this can further contribute to download failures.
Solutions and Workaround:
eDiscovery Tool: If you have eDiscovery enablement feature for your inSync tenant, you can use the E-Discovery tool (a WebDAV based tool) to download user based workloads data like EndPoint, Exchange Online, OneDrive, Gmail and GDrive. This tool can download the data via 30 multithread operations by default resulting in faster download and also has a resumibility function. This Article can be referred to follow the steps for the same.
Try performing a direct restore to the destination account: Performing a restore to the destination would not go through the browser request as it would be handled by the server directly which does support parallel connections.
Restore For Endpoints - You can restore the backed-up data using the inSync client. The inSync client supports multi-threading which will be reliable and faster compared to the browser-based download.
Download Data in chunks: If none of the above options are feasible then you can download the data by selecting a few folders or a few snapshots and download the data in batches.
Conclusion
The limitations of single-threaded download processes in many browsers can cause issues with downloading heavy data, leading to hangs, crashes, or incomplete downloads. By using the above solutions you can mitigate these problems and achieve more reliable downloads.