Member Avatar for klentoi

So I was searching for this particular old old software and can only be found through Demonoid torrent; however, most of the time there are no seeds.

So this is the history:
1st to 2nd week, someone seeded for a while - got 1.5% complete (dl speed was 2 kb/s out of 100 max)
at 3rd week - got to 2.6%
(dl speed was 2 kb/s out of 100 max)
at 4th week, 2 seeded for a few hours which got me to 14.9%
(dl speed was 30 kb/s out of 100 max)

So I thought, what if I had several folders for these so they can download at different file parts, thus increasing my speed (maybe in folder A, 5 kb/s and at folder B 25 kb/s or something) and seeding my own self if they are not around? does it make sense? does this at least speed things up?

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Dani AI

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Short answer: duplicating the same torrent into multiple folders or running several instances on the same machine almost never gives a reliable speed boost. As hinted and as discovered, the real limits are the swarm and the protocol, not how many local copies you keep.

BitTorrent splits files into pieces and peers exchange those pieces using rarest-first and choking/unchoking rules. Running two clients looks like two peers, but many peers and trackers limit uploads per IP or per connection, so you often get the same pieces twice (wasted traffic) or simply compete with yourself for the same small pool of sources. If the swarm does not contain a full copy (client "availability" < 1) no local trick will finish the download. Also note the risk of disk thrash or accidental file collisions if multiple clients write the same data.

What to try instead (practical checklist):

  • Check the torrent's availability/complete copies in your client; if < 1 you need a seed elsewhere.
  • Inspect tracker responses and peer lists to see if peers are just partials.
  • Enable DHT and PEX, and make sure your client accepts incoming connections (port forwarded and firewall allowed).
  • Add reputable public trackers sparingly, and reduce overly low/max connection settings that throttle throughput.
  • Try a different modern client with better connection handling.
  • Look for legitimate alternate sources (vendor site, archives). For background on how piece availability works see BitTorrent; for old legitimate software try the Internet Archive.

A final note: you can only seed pieces you actually have — creating multiple partial copies on disk does not create new data for the swarm. If no full seed exists, the practical solutions are improving connectivity, finding another seed, or obtaining the file from a legitimate archive.

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Member Avatar for nav33n

No. It doesn't work that way with torrents. Btw, Its a taboo subject to discuss it here. :)

Member Avatar for klentoi

Oh thank you, I tried checking if there were related posts and found some so thought I might give it a shot. Thanks for the warning

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