P2P v. Torrent

[StewartP]

I'm trying to download some Red Dwarf and now Vuze is running like a pig below 10kB per sec. When I was downloading Torchood it came in at over 300kB/sec.

Is it because there aren't many other users online with this Red Dwarf File or do I need to tweak Vuze?

[Tiberius]

I'm trying to download some Red Dwarf and now Vuze is running like a pig below 10kB per sec. When I was downloading Torchood it came in at over 300kB/sec.

Is it because there aren't many other users online with this Red Dwarf File or do I need to tweak Vuze?

Probably the former. Older files tend not to torrent well. Most torrent websites have the recent number of "seeders" and "leechers" next to each file. You want to pick a file that has a large number of seeders and a low number of leechers. Seeders are people who are sending parts of the file to people, and leechers are people who are simply downloading the file without sharing much back.

[Darwinian]

I'm trying to download some Red Dwarf and now Vuze is running like a pig below 10kB per sec. When I was downloading Torchood it came in at over 300kB/sec.

Is it because there aren't many other users online with this Red Dwarf File or do I need to tweak Vuze?

Probably the former. Older files tend not to torrent well. Most torrent websites have the recent number of "seeders" and "leechers" next to each file. You want to pick a file that has a large number of seeders and a low number of leechers. Seeders are people who are sending parts of the file to people, and leechers are people who are simply downloading the file without sharing much back.

Where do these websites get the torrent files from? Still curious you see.

[Tiberius]

Someone somewhere obtains the original file, say a movie or series. They then create a torrent file for those items in a torrent program like Azureus (File -> New Torrent). The file contains simple information like the file list, and also the url of the tracker. The file is then uploaded to a torrent site, where people can download it.

The downloaded torrent connects to the tracker, which sends back connection information of all the other people currently connected, and the file is shared.

[StewartP]

So a file's download speed will have an optimum lifespan. When it's new it won't be on many comuters but will be much in demand. Then as it spreads about it will download like shit off a shovel because there will be so many available threads to pull it from.

As it ages, people will delete it and archive it and it will become rarer, thus slower to download.

[Tiberius]

Pretty much. Popular things usually last years though, so I'm surprised the Red Dwarf download was slow. Try the top few of these:

http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=Red+Dwarf

The number in the "S" column is the number of seeders. The higher that number, the faster it should be. Take into account the "L" number as well, because the higher that is, the slower the download will be.