BitComet Seeding

[forrest1980]

Hi,

Just a quick question abou the "seeds/peers". I'm new to all this although i have read the general fundamentals of torrents on here.

If a have a torrent file, do i have to constantly upload the files so as i become a peer and share them with others ?

Once i'm uploading the file for others do i then become a seed ?

If not how do i become a seed so others can get the files easy ?

Just want to share as much as possible because without sharing we don't get anything!

Thanks

[greywizard]

The BitTorrent protocol works by using pieces as trading units. It breaks the file-set described by a .torrent file into a virtual set of pieces (usually between 64KB-4MB in size) which are then exchanged between peers.

When you create a task out of a torrent file by adding it into your BitTorrent client, as soon as you start receiving a few pieces, your client starts uploading them towards other peers it's downloading from (which do not have at least one of the pieces you posses). If it didn't upload as well, at the same time with downloading, your client would be locked out by the rest of the swarm and your downloading speed would quickly drop to 0.

Once you have the whole contents of the torrent file-set your client transforms into a seeder for that torrent (a.k.a. it altruistically offers the pieces it possesses without demanding any in exchange from other clients). It's as simple as leaving you task running after it finishes downloading.

The main issue is that the great majority of people have asymmetric Internet connections (much higher download speed than upload speed) therefore the download of a torrent finishes way before you uploaded as much data as you have downloaded.

So, if everybody would stop their tasks immediately after finishing the download, then all torrents on the net would be pretty quickly dead. Seeding is a paramount activity in the BitTorrent Network; it's what keeps it alive and what enables you, me and everyone else to find what we're looking for on the network.

It's due to the good faith of others, that we're able to find torrents still being alive even years after they were uploaded and started by their original uploader.

That's why the Share Ratio statistical parameter was created and introduced in all clients' interfaces, so that one could watch at any time, how much has been uploaded for a certain torrent.

The share ratio is calculated by dividing the uploaded data by the downloaded data size. Therefore a share ratio of 1 means you just have uploaded as much as downloaded.

That's a "minimum minimorum" to upload for any given torrent, otherwise you'll be a leech. In fact, one should upload some more (1.5-2 is an usually acceptable ratio), or much more, especially if that one particular torrent doesn't have many seeds/has a rare or old content on the net (this way you can make sure that others will be able to fell the same joy you felt, when you found that rare/old content in a torrent and were thankful that somebody was still seeding it).

For more info on the subject read also this BitComet Wiki topics: BitTorrent, the intro part of this topic and also this FAQ topic.

[viper81896]

i understand about the piece by piece bit my question is how would one become a LT or long-time seeder. just sit there and let it upload? for how long? and would it be on just that one torrent?

[greywizard]

Well, your previous post mentioned nothing about LT-Seeding.

As soon as your task is finished your client can start uploading by LT-Seeding. All you need to do is have LT-Seeding enabled on the Options page.

The difference is that the task will be available for uploading through LT-Seeding towards other peers for as long as the task exists in the Task List, even if the task is stopped.

[kluelos]

This point may not be clear, but LT-seeding is a creation of BitComet, and only BitComet supports it. Other clients could adopt it if they wished, and BitComet would welcome that, but no one else has actually done so.

All clients do normal seeding, only BitComet does LT-Seeding in addition. Only recent BitComet clients can get any benefit from LT-Seeders, too. The LT-Seeding process is in addition to, and sort of on-top of, standard bittorrent. It's important not to get the two conflated.