Thread: Torrent download speeds

Originally Posted by Mick-Kelly

Question - I have broadband and im tentatively putting my toes into the world of bit torrent dowloads. What speed should i set it at for fastest downloads???? It gives me a choice between dialup 56k and 100Mbit with everything in between?? I'm not a very computer literate person just want to make sure it is operating at maximum efficiency.
cheers
Mick

Have you got ADSL 1, ADSL 2, or cable

ADSL I would set at between 208 and 512, if it's ADSL 2 then 5 - 8 Mbit,

If it's cable then you will be goverened by how many people are on line on 'your' leg of the cable

Originally Posted by ladas

Have you got ADSL 1, ADSL 2, or cable

ADSL I would set at between 208 and 512, if it's ADSL 2 then 5 - 8 Mbit,

If it's cable then you will be goverened by how many people are on line on 'your' leg of the cable

Yes it is but cable is still faster then ADSL

I thought that it would not matter what you chase, it would just download at whatever you ISP can handle at the time.

Thats a very good question and the answer is I dont have a clue. I got a box from bigpond broadband with a modem in it, plugged it into the computer and hey presto the internet . Ive set it at 156mb after some online speed test thingys recommendation.

Even if you do set it faster it's not going to mater as the speed will throttle back to what you system can handle and what the seeding and downloading peers can supply.

Just remember you are metered with Bigpond on what you download and upload so (an yes this does go against the idea of Torrents) when you've downloaded something make sure you stop it from seeding to others or it may start using up you monthly quote just that bit faster. Thankfully we don't have great upload speeds in Australia so it's not as bad as it could be.

What Torrent software are you using? Is it Azureus??

Cool, its uTorrent 1.6 how do I restrict the upload bit? Only got started on this today following the "a 4wd is born' thread. It is saying it will take about three days to download the series which is 2.53gb.

Originally Posted by Mick-Kelly

Cool, its uTorrent 1.6 how do I restrict the upload bit? Only got started on this today following the "a 4wd is born' thread. It is saying it will take about three days to download the series which is 2.53gb.

Sorry Mick, I haven't used uTorrent for ages (I've even un-installed it). With Azureus you can do a number of things to limit speed when seeding. Most Torrent tools won't let you stop seeding altogether when downloading but when finished you should then remove it from the seed list.

Originally Posted by walker

Yes it is but cable is still faster then ADSL

I thought that it would not matter what you chase, it would just download at whatever you ISP can handle at the time.

Not guaranteed faster...

Cable is pooled... More people on slower it goes...

ADSL guarantee line speed.

ADSL, Cable etc all are a switched network but the true speed is all to do with overall load (for ADSL that starts at the exchange, for cable its a shared service).

General rule of thumb for any network is you won't get better than 70% burst rate throughput.