Data usage discrepancy
Recently, I have discovered that my data usage has been excessive. Consistently, I have been using about 10-15 GB per day and about 300 GB per month. Now, as of mid-February, I am using 50-100+ GB per day and I am currently at 1.3 TB used.
I've worked in a data center and the IT industry for many years and performed the following:
-Reset my WIFI password to another cryptic and long password
-Enabled traffic monitor on my router. To elaborate, my router indicated I've used about 5.7 GB of data and Cox says I used 50 GB.
-Verified all attached devices to my router and mines and firmware upgraded.
-Executed nmap from external to my home IP and verified I don't have any dangling open ports.
-Reset my router MAC and reset my modem to pick up a new IP.
-Exchanged my Cox modem for a new modem.
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Any ideas? My apps and devices are all monitored and everything is normal. 6 GB daily usage vs 50 GB and 300 GB monthly trend to 1.3+ TB?
My last isolation test was to put my old router in front of my new router. My old router only has capability of monitoring the entire network throughput but only 1 device would be attached. When I did this, I noticed that the total data (up/down) was moving significantly on my old router. It would be nice if the up/down meter could be separated, not total per Cox.
Next step was to turn off all devices and turn on one by one. Looking at my old router, I discovered most activity came from my work laptop and was most likely the culprit. Oddly, my new router was not accurately posting network activity for my work laptop, possibly because of having multiple VMs. Seems the router detects my VMs on a landline host, but not a WIFI host.
Furthermore, I uninstalled OneDrive (cloud sync) on my work laptop. After making a shortcut on my desktop to my VMshare, I think it might have been trying to sync everything beneath that shortcut.
Yesterday I used about 15GB so that was slightly above normal. Hopefully this resolution will help a few people.
