I have been running a whm/cpanel server for a while now and the FTP performance is pretty dire when uploading lots of small files (which accounts for 99% of all ftp transfers). after 30 seconds it all starts slowing down and after 4-5 mins you start getting the "waiting for server" message in dreamweaver and it eventually times out.

I have used shared cPanel hosting accounts where FTP performace has been blinding. I have no idea what they did that I am not doing now.

All my FTP settings are default and I have tried both pro-FTP and pure-FTP. Does anyone have any ideas?

thanks in advance

Is this a new development or has it always been like this? I'd look into any recent changes if the slowdowns just started.

Otherwise my next place of poking around is going to be the connection on both ends of the transfers. But with the detail in your post it could be a bucket full of different problems.

TBH its somthing I have always noticd with cPanel hosting. I have used lots of shared cPanel hosting accounts in the past some have really fast FTP some have slow with lots of ftp timeouts. now I am running my own server with cPanel I am trying to work out what it was that good hosts did in the past that made it better.

If hosts are running firewall programs that disable high ports without configuring their ftp daemons, you can run into trouble connecting/staying connected/uploading.