Torrent vs FTP speed

[tomodachi_153]

Hi,
Can someone help work out why when I download with uTorrent my speed drops off compared to using FTP download? Using the BT FTP test I get about 950kB/s while testing the OpenSource Office torrent I only get about 250kB/s. I've tired out torrents but the fastest download speed I can get is around 300kB/s and then I can still surf websites at the same time so the line doesn't seem to be maxed out.

I figured it's something to do with my setup of uTorrent since the test speeds look fine. I have port forwarding and the green check is on and applied the tcip.sys patch and set the max_halfopen=50. Any thing else that might be the problem?

My stats are below:
ADSL Link Downstream Upstream
Connection Speed 8190 kbps 396 kbps
Line Attenuation 28.0 db 15.4 db
Noise Margin 15.2 db 24.0 db

[Keiran2K8]

It all depends on Server Location & Speed!

See; Broadband Diagnostics Speedtest
That is the BT Speedtest Clone in a USA Server!

See; BT Openworld
That is the BT Speedtest in a UK Server!

With Torrents there are a few things you should consider;

* The Location of the person sharing the LEGAL file
* Their Link Speed of the person sharing the LEGAL file
* And your link speed!

[NewsreadeR]

Have you set it up like the tutorial?

http://www.skyuser.co.uk/forum/view.php?pg=azureus

Also http downloads are nearly always going to be faster, as some ISP's throttle p2p


edit just spotted you are using utorrent, try Azureus

[Keiran2K8]

Jeez! IMO uTorrent is alot better but thats my 2p!

@Ged,;

I have port forwarding

[Amaboknaai]

@tomodachi

When comparing download speed of FTP'ed files and torrents, it is like comparing apples and pears...

FTP - You are making a direct connection to a dedicated server through a dedicated port (21). A commercial FTP site will (usually) have a substantial symmetric pipe with a LOT more bandwidth, multicasting and loadbalanced connections (hence the speed) than a

BITTORRENT - this is NOT a direct connection on a one-to one basis. It is the very definition of a peer-to-peer connection. You are not receiving a single file from a single connection. You are receving tiny pieces of a file from multiple npn-commercial connections (seeders) (tho commercial sites are starting to use torrents to distribute files!). At the same time, you are uploading tiny pieces of the file to other multiple peers, simultaneously. The speed of the torrent download is limited by 1) your downstream bandwith 2) your upstream bandwidth 3) the port(s) you have configured (some ISP throttle specific ports) 4) unencrypted traffic (some ISP use traffic shaping on specific types of traffic) 5) the number of seeders (hence why it is good manners to continue to seed completed torrent download to a ratio of at least 1:1) 6) the speed of the computer you are running it on 7) the configuration of your torrent client (this is critical, since everyone's ADSL connection has unique features, ie speed / SNR / attenuation / other network traffic etc etc.

The BitTorrent protocol was created by a genius (he happens to be an autistic savant btw) who conceptualised the idea and turned it into a protocol whereby the sharing of files was made free and easy for any "peer".

I hope that this answers your question? This was not meant to be paternalistic, but, hopefully, will satisfy other readers of this thread.

[tomodachi_153]

Thank for the explanation. It gives much more insight into the two different methods. I guess it's hard to really make a comparisions. I just thought the speed different might be software related but with all the factors it's hard to track down.

Thanks for replies.