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There is no published, controlled head-to-head test in the available sources that measures rclone mount and rclone bisync on Dropbox with the same files, machine, network, and operations. The available figures are workload-specific bisync examples—not a universal speed or memory ranking. The practical choice is whether you want to browse remote files through a virtual filesystem or keep real local copies synchronized between two paths.
What mount and bisync do differently
| Mode | How you access files | Where the files live | Freshness model |
|---|---|---|---|
| rclone mount | Exposes remote storage through a virtual filesystem, so applications can browse or open remote files without first maintaining a full local copy. | On the remote service; local caching and write-back behavior depend on mount settings. | Interactive access, subject to filesystem caching, directory visibility, polling, and remote-service behavior. |
| rclone bisync | Compares two paths and propagates changes in both directions. | At both endpoints as real files. | Updates when bisync runs, plus time for listings and transfers. |
These are different access patterns, not two interchangeable ways to run the same operation. Mount suits direct access to remote data; bisync suits workflows that need files present at both locations, including when a local copy is useful offline.
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What the published bisync timings actually measure
The rclone bisync guide documents a local-disk-to-Dropbox example on an internet connection reported at about 170 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload. The starting set was 500 files of about 9.5 MB each; one transfer scenario added 50 files of about 9.5 MB each, roughly 475 MB total. These are guide-reported timings for that setup, not independent tests or mount timings.
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| Documented operation | Guide-reported timing | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| List 500 already-synced files, with nothing to transfer | 1.5 seconds overall | Time for that no-change listing run. |
Same 500-file no-change case with --check-access |
1.5 seconds overall | The guide reports the same overall time in this example. |
| Download 50 new remote files, about 475 MB total | 27 seconds for queued copies; 29 seconds overall | Transfer direction and the example’s download bandwidth matter. |
| Move the local directory | 410 seconds for 50 uploads and 9 seconds for 50 remote deletes; 421 seconds overall | The upload-heavy case reflects the example’s 10 Mbps upload connection. |
| Move the remote directory | 31 seconds for 50 downloads and under one second for 50 deletes; 33 seconds overall | The guide reports a download-heavy operation on the same example setup. |
| Delete the local directory | 9 seconds for 50 remote deletes; 13 seconds overall | A delete-focused case, not a file-transfer benchmark. |
The guide also describes a larger synchronization example of about 400 GB and 1.96 million files between a Windows disk and remote cloud storage. Loading the prior listing, reported as 140 MB, took about 30 seconds and used about 1 GB of RAM; determining the delta took a few seconds once the listings were loaded. Fresh local and remote listing times and a network-speed value are not stated in the guide. None of these numbers compares bisync with mount.
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A user-submitted GitHub issue reports one person’s bisync normal runs at 6 minutes 44.7 seconds with defaults and 6 minutes 31.9 seconds with checksum-related flags; subsequent sync and copy runs were around 17–19 seconds. The setup and workload were specific, and the discussion is not a controlled benchmark. It cannot establish how mount would perform on the same workload.
Latency is not the same as freshness
Mount: interactive access, with caches in the path
A mounted filesystem can make remote browsing and file access available through familiar file operations, but that does not guarantee instantaneous remote consistency. The mount documentation sets --attr-timeout to one second by default for kernel attribute caching. Directory visibility and detection of changes made outside the mount also depend on directory-cache settings, whether the backend supports polling, and the configured intervals.
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In a rclone forum discussion, maintainer Niel explains that a written file is sent back after it is closed and has not been accessed for the --vfs-write-back period. A change made directly on the cloud service may not appear through the mount until polling detects it or the directory cache expires. Thus, a quick local response to an application is not necessarily proof that the remote copy is already updated.
Bisync: update delay follows the run schedule
Bisync runs when invoked or scheduled. Its freshness delay depends on how often it runs, the time needed to list both paths, backend API behavior, and any transfers. Running it more frequently can shorten the scheduling component of the delay, but also means more frequent work; it does not turn bisync into an interactive mounted filesystem. The ten-minute schedule mentioned in the forum discussion is one user’s practice, not a default or general recommendation.
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RAM depends on file count, version, and cache choices
The guide’s roughly 1 GB figure describes loading a prior listing in its 1.96-million-file example. It is not a general memory estimate for every Dropbox tree, every current rclone version, or rclone mount.
Version matters for very large directories. The rclone FAQ says that before rclone v1.70, a directory with millions of entries had to be loaded entirely into memory as rclone objects, with each object taking roughly 0.5–1 kB. Starting in v1.70, rclone can automatically save directory entries to disk when a directory exceeds --list-cutoff, which defaults to 1,000,000; v1.70 also introduced --max-buffer-memory. These changes make it particularly important not to apply the older large-listing example as a universal current memory requirement.
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Mount has its own cache trade-offs, but the cited documentation does not provide a comparable numeric peak-RAM benchmark. The mount documentation says increasing --attr-timeout can reduce callbacks and improve efficiency, while making it more likely that a file whose remote length changes during the cache window appears truncated or has trailing garbage. Setting the timeout to zero can cause memory and directory-listing problems. To estimate resources for either mode, measure peak resident memory using the actual rclone version, directory structure, cache settings, and concurrent workload.
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Bisync’s default preserves both changed versions
Bisync calls a conflict a file that has changed on both sides since the preceding run and is currently different. With the default --conflict-resolve none, it renames the copies with conflict suffixes and copies each version to the opposite path, preserving both. Other options can select the newer or older modification time, larger or smaller file, or one designated path. If the selected rule cannot determine a winner, bisync falls back to keeping both versions.
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Safety checks do not eliminate every race
The bisync guide says the snapshot model introduced in rclone v1.66 substantially reduced risks from files changing during a run. A file that changes exactly while it is being read or written can still cause an error, as can happen with rclone sync. Bisync’s default --max-delete threshold is 50%; it aborts before changes if deletions exceed that threshold. If you change a filters file, use --resync: otherwise files excluded from new listings could be mistaken for deletions.
Mount does not create bisync-style conflict copies
Mount does not provide bisync’s paired conflict-renaming workflow. When multiple clients or processes edit the same file, write-back timing and caches affect which version reaches or is visible from the remote. The forum explanation warns about races in concurrent edits. The available sources provide no measured conflict rate or head-to-head conflict count for either mode.
Quick Recap
Choose by workflow, then test the risky parts
- Choose mount when applications need filesystem-style access to remote files and you do not want to keep a full local copy solely for access.
- Choose bisync when real files need to exist at both endpoints and you can tolerate updates arriving on the run schedule rather than through a mounted view.
- For simultaneous editing, understand bisync’s default keep-both behavior, and test conflict handling and recovery with backed-up sample data before relying on it.
- For very large trees, assess the rclone version and actual directory shape, then measure memory on the intended workload rather than extrapolating the single 1.96-million-file example.
- For freshness-sensitive use, account for mount polling and cache intervals or bisync scheduling and transfer time; neither mode’s label alone establishes when a remote change will be visible everywhere.
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