I think a lot of people are confused about what sort of speed numbers they should see reported from their BitTorrent download. Let me try to clear some of that up.
First, don't guess what your connection speed is... if you haven't tested both your download and upload speeds lately then do it here. http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/ When you test your speed make sure nothing else is running... i.e., stop your BitTorrent client. (speakeasy is a US site, it will work for people overseas but you should be able to do a search via Google or whatnot for one closer to you for most accurate results.)
Ok, so you've done the speed test. What do the numbers mean? It's CRITICAL that you take note of the abbreviation for the units when you're discussing speed/transfer rate.
Connection speed is measured in Kilobits per second (kb/s or kbps)... notice that's lowercase. This is the number that most online speed tests tell you and it's also the number that your ISP promises.
Transfer rate is measured in kiloBytes per second (KB/s or KBps)... notice the "KB" is uppercase. This is the number reported by most programs (BitTorrent client, your browser etc).
A "bit" is a single piece of data. It's either a 1 or a 0. A "Byte" (aka a "word") is made up of 8 "bits".
So your KB/s transfer rate number (in BitTorrent) is going to be a smaller number than the kb/s that your ISP promises. It's doesn't mean you have a connection problem, it just means the numbers have different units. It's the same thing as saying "Hey... this football field is supposed to be 100 yards long but I just measured it and it's NOT 100 yards, it's 300 feet!!"
(edit: Insert Metric example here... you get the picture)
Lets look at the numbers I'm getting for an example.
Speakeasy and ISP tells me I have:
Download: 6000 kbps (divide by 8 to get KB/s = 750 KB/s) Upload: 350 kbps (divide by 8 to get KB/s = 44KB/s)
The upload value is critical. You have to find your upload value and then make sure that your BitTorrent client manages it correctly. If all you want to do is upload to others then by all means open it up and set your upload to max (44 KB/s in my case). But if you're trying to download then you have to set your Upload at a slightly lower rate to make sure your BitTorrent client has room to send Acknowledgement packets back to your peers. If a peer sends you something and your upload is too clogged to acknowledge it they will assume you didn't get it so they re-send it and reduce the transfer rate to you. The recommendation is to limit your upload to 80% of the max upload transfer rate. In my case that would be (44KB/s x .80 = 35KB/s). That way you should have plenty of room to acknowledge and your download rate should grow over time.
Another key factor is to make sure you are accepting connection requests from others.
I'm not sure how this is displayed in other programs, but in BitComet there's an entry in the "Peers" view that shows whether the connection was initiated by Local or Remote. If you don't have any remote connections then the port is probably blocked in your router. With all "Local" connections you'll end up with only a fraction of your max download speed. Here's a link to a BitComet help page to correct that issue:
Check the FAQ's for your specific BitTorrent client for settings to fix that and other issues, but hopefully this helps everyone understand what is a "fast" or "slow" number.
If you have a router, you need the appropriate bittorent ports to be forwarded to your computer or your speed will be extremely slow. A firewall could also be blocking the ports. You need to allow incoming connections to certain ports on your computer. FYI, I downloaded it at 230KB/s.
Comments
I think a lot of people are confused about what sort of speed numbers they should see reported from their BitTorrent download. Let me try to clear some of that up.
First, don't guess what your connection speed is... if you haven't tested both your download and upload speeds lately then do it here. http://www.speakeasy.net/speedtest/
When you test your speed make sure nothing else is running... i.e., stop your BitTorrent client.
(speakeasy is a US site, it will work for people overseas but you should be able to do a search via Google or whatnot for one closer to you for most accurate results.)
Ok, so you've done the speed test. What do the numbers mean?
It's CRITICAL that you take note of the abbreviation for the units when you're discussing speed/transfer rate.
Connection speed is measured in Kilobits per second (kb/s or kbps)... notice that's lowercase. This is the number that most online speed tests tell you and it's also the number that your ISP promises.
Transfer rate is measured in kiloBytes per second (KB/s or KBps)... notice the "KB" is uppercase. This is the number reported by most programs (BitTorrent client, your browser etc).
A "bit" is a single piece of data. It's either a 1 or a 0.
A "Byte" (aka a "word") is made up of 8 "bits".
So your KB/s transfer rate number (in BitTorrent) is going to be a smaller number than the kb/s that your ISP promises. It's doesn't mean you have a connection problem, it just means the numbers have different units. It's the same thing as saying "Hey... this football field is supposed to be 100 yards long but I just measured it and it's NOT 100 yards, it's 300 feet!!"
(edit: Insert Metric example here... you get the picture)
Lets look at the numbers I'm getting for an example.
Speakeasy and ISP tells me I have:
Download: 6000 kbps (divide by 8 to get KB/s = 750 KB/s)
Upload: 350 kbps (divide by 8 to get KB/s = 44KB/s)
The upload value is critical. You have to find your upload value and then make sure that your BitTorrent client manages it correctly.
If all you want to do is upload to others then by all means open it up and set your upload to max (44 KB/s in my case).
But if you're trying to download then you have to set your Upload at a slightly lower rate to make sure your BitTorrent client has room to send Acknowledgement packets back to your peers. If a peer sends you something and your upload is too clogged to acknowledge it they will assume you didn't get it so they re-send it and reduce the transfer rate to you.
The recommendation is to limit your upload to 80% of the max upload transfer rate. In my case that would be (44KB/s x .80 = 35KB/s). That way you should have plenty of room to acknowledge and your download rate should grow over time.
Another key factor is to make sure you are accepting connection requests from others.
I'm not sure how this is displayed in other programs, but in BitComet there's an entry in the "Peers" view that shows whether the connection was initiated by Local or Remote. If you don't have any remote connections then the port is probably blocked in your router. With all "Local" connections you'll end up with only a fraction of your max download speed.
Here's a link to a BitComet help page to correct that issue:
http://www.p2pforums.com/viewtopic.php?p=99434#99434
Check the FAQ's for your specific BitTorrent client for settings to fix that and other issues, but hopefully this helps everyone understand what is a "fast" or "slow" number.
Edit: Posted by Jimmybee in the DnL forums: http://www.darkandlight.net/forums/showthread.php?t=39678
Kekule
very nice explanation thanks
It is dark magic!!!!! Called L.A.G
If you have a router, you need the appropriate bittorent ports to be forwarded to your computer or your speed will be extremely slow. A firewall could also be blocking the ports. You need to allow incoming connections to certain ports on your computer. FYI, I downloaded it at 230KB/s.
you were probably never told about the secret grand ritual you must perform to get good speeds....
hmmm....sorry, I can't tell you about it either....good day!!