Very Slow Download And Upload Speed

[MadDogMyers]

Im new to downloading torrent files and new to BitComet i dont really understand the uploading of files when you are downloading them i assume that means someone is downloading from me but myn is downloading at 10kb/s minimum to 20kb/s maximum and uploading at 9kb/s and im wondering why its downloading so slow and is there anyway of speeding up the download because at this rate it will take 36hours to download this file and also what is seeding for.

Sorry for all the questions.

Thanks.

[kluelos]

Bittorrent is quite unlike anything you've probably used before.

When you start downloading, you join a swarm of others. Someone sends you a piece of the torrent. You send that same piece to others, while you're receiving another piece from somebody else. So it goes on, always downloading then uploading to others.

Bittorrent is quite a lot slower than downloading a file from a web server. It was created as a means of lowering the burden on the server, while still distributing a file to many people. If you were downloading from, say, FilePlanet, you'd have to get in line, often a very long line, and wait your turn. The load on their server is immense.

You've got a home broadband connection, so it's asymmetric, a lot more downstream bandwidth than upstream. If you tried to serve a file from that connection, it would very quickly choke your upstream pipe completely. This sharing strategy gets around that and still makes it possible for large numbers of people to obtain a file without waiting in line for it.

That said, you do need to make sure you're doing your part and configuring your client correctly. Misconfiguration can greatly slow you down. There's a settings guide in the Guides forum that you should go over carefully.