I'm confused about what Leechers and Seeders are.


Also, what's a peer? (in torrents...)

 

Thanks. So could the Seeder be the website hosting the file?

 

None. A seeder is a physical person who's sharing the file (not the *.torrent) from his computer.

 

Ehhh... I don't know about that. They can be uploading parts that they already have downloaded.

Such as an example: I'm downloading a 1 gig file. I only have 50% downloaded, but I'm still uploading that file.

 

That's a peer.

A seed is somebody that has the entire file and is therefore only uploading. Distinct (and important) job.

 

Basically this is what happens.
1. A person makes a torrent file and seeds that file from their own computer (uploading the file to anybody who wants to download)
2. A leecher starts downloading that file from a person. As soon as they have 1 part of any file in the torrent they can start uploading that part to anybody else
3. People start downloading from these 2 and so on until the chain get bigger resulting in faster downloads for all involved.

 

Basically, the more seeders, the faster the file downloads?

I think I like torrent files lol.

 

Typically yes... but not always.
Same with "The less Leechers, the faster the download", mostly true, but not always.

Example:
A). 100 Seeds and 10 Leechers -- This will almost assuredly be your best for speed since it has the most seeds and fewest leechers.
B). 50 Seeds and 10 Leechers -- This has a good ratio, 5:1 seeders, so you'll get decent speeds.
C). 100 Seeds and 50 Leechers -- This will most likely be the slowest. Even though it has twice as many Seeds as B, the ratio is only 2:1.

 

In an extra example, 10 seeds and 100 leechers... speed will be unstable, since you'll mostly be relying on the leechers for the download and not so much the seeds... likely the slowest speed you'll get.

Unless you get a leecher with a high upload speed, which is rare but not unheard of.

 

Torrent speeds are pretty random to be honest. It really depends if the peer(seeder) that you're connected to has a high bandwidth connection capable of uploading and you're paired with them. Like Rydian I've seen some Torrent downloads upwards of 1.9MB/s - 2.2MB/s. Some legal examples would be popular Linux distro's most seed out at an incredibly high speed.

Public trackers aren't going to give out great speeds 9/10ths of the time, that's why private trackers to exist. Most users who use Public trackers tend to "hit and run", which is to say that they connect to a seeder, download the entire file, then remove the torrent from their client. Private sites tent to discourage this; saying that you should seed back your file at least 1:1 or for 72 hours. Though, depending on the file size the rules change. Then again, with private sites, most downloads are like lightning anyway.

Seeder - Someone who has the entire 100% file.
Leecher - Someone Downloading the file. They may upload data, but only data that they've downloaded. For example, say you've downloaded 100MB of a 350MB Fringe episode, you might be able to seed it back out at 500 kb/s, but a [Seeder] is going to be much more efficient at sharing data because he'll have more peers/clients making requests of him whereas you're limited to the 100MB that you've downloaded. Primarily, High-Bandwidth Seeders = Speed. The ratio of Seeders to leechers is probably the most important advice for a newbie.

-I2aven