I need to download Fedora Core 4 x86_64 CD’s, so I thought I’d give bittorrent a try: the idea of distributed download servers appeals to me. It didn’t work too well, though: the download speed reached 50KB/sec and then stayed there. So, after about 10 minutes, I gave up, and downloaded the images off of a mirror site.
I assume that this works better if you’re actually downloading something popular?
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Are you behind NAT? You’ll get low speeds if you haven’t set up bittorrent port forwarding on your router.
http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/25.html
– C.
3/7/2006 @ 11:47 am
I’m not using NAT yet (the router was supposed to arrive yesterday, but UPS didn’t deliver it), but thanks, I’ll keep that in mind once the router is in place.
3/7/2006 @ 12:07 pm
Many anecodatal stories indicate that, yes, if you are downloading something popular, you will get pretty good download rates. My own personal experiment run about a year or more ago with an “official” conventional download vs. a bittorrent of the same file was a clear win for the conventional download.
I think that much of the theoretical upside of bittorrent is in practice limited by the slow upstream and downstream capacities of DSL and cable. That is, the bottleneck for most residential users really isn’t the server (assuming we are talking about something officially supported rather than somebody’s home box serving ripped DVDs or whatever), it’s their local link.
3/7/2006 @ 7:35 pm
To clarify reply 3:
The bittorrent protocol is designed to (as much as possible) deter parasites: people who download at a higher rate than they upload. I’m not sure the relationship is that direct, but there’s some sort of gating going on.
So even though you’re downloading, your speed can be limited by your upload link rate. On cable modems and asymmetric DSL, your upload link is usually much slower than your download link.
3/8/2006 @ 4:28 pm
I don’t think that the upload link was the limiting factor in this case, but I’ll keep that in mind in the future.
3/9/2006 @ 8:33 pm