My hard drives are reasonably fast, so even with a quarter million files it doesn't take long to scan the filesystem. I have other backup software that scan the exact same folders and finish in less than 30 seconds. So I suspect that it's your journaling/unserializing system that takes up the bulk of the startup time.
Fortunately, I only need to start up SpiderOak once in a while, because nowadays I put my computers into hibernation instead of shutting them down and starting them up again. I also noticed that the more often I use SpiderOak, the less time it takes to start up, presumably because there's less delta to process. Also, as you said, once SpiderOak is up and running, it's relatively fast. Rest assured that the performance issues, although annoying, have not dissuaded me from renewing my SpiderOak Plus (100GB) account once again last month.
I also like the fact that SpiderOak's "Queue" and "Log" screens tell me exactly what it's doing at any given moment. Waiting becomes a lot more tolerable when I know what I'm waiting for. I hate backup tools that assume the user is too dumb to understand what's going on behind the scenes. Even Wuala's Upload/Download queue never seems to work properly.
Fortunately, I only need to start up SpiderOak once in a while, because nowadays I put my computers into hibernation instead of shutting them down and starting them up again. I also noticed that the more often I use SpiderOak, the less time it takes to start up, presumably because there's less delta to process. Also, as you said, once SpiderOak is up and running, it's relatively fast. Rest assured that the performance issues, although annoying, have not dissuaded me from renewing my SpiderOak Plus (100GB) account once again last month.
I also like the fact that SpiderOak's "Queue" and "Log" screens tell me exactly what it's doing at any given moment. Waiting becomes a lot more tolerable when I know what I'm waiting for. I hate backup tools that assume the user is too dumb to understand what's going on behind the scenes. Even Wuala's Upload/Download queue never seems to work properly.