Faster downloads

There are a number of steps you can take to achieve the fastest possible download speed. Try these:

• Ensure ports are forwarded. This is vital to maintaing connections and achieving reasonable speeds. See this guide for details.
• If you have a software firewall, give your BitTorrent client the access level it needs. Make sure it can handle both inbound and outbound connections, and act as a server.
• Make sure the torrent is active on the tracker. Use a tool like TorrentSpy to verify this. The tracker should accept the torrent and have a few peers on the database for the torrent to perform reasonably well. Open Source Torrents maintains active peer lists of all listed torrents, but this is useful for other sites.
• Occasionally, limiting your upload rate can boost your download rate. On ADSL connections, for example, the upload rate is much smaller than the download rate. If you leave no limit on your upload rate, your torrent client will use significant bandwidth for seeding while downloading, but every downloaded packet needs to be acknowledged and if bandwidth is being fully used for seeding acknowledgement packets may take time to get through, lowering download speeds. Try 80% of your maxium upload rate.
• Leave the torrent on, especially overnight if possible, and wait for seeders to come online. BitTorrent users are on in many different time zones, and you may find that at certain time zones seeders from countries with fat pipes (large upstream data rates) are online and can really boost your download rate. Be patient!

Please contact us with any other tips you know of.