[Ham-Computers] RE: Routers, port forwarding and "BitTorrent", questions

[Hsu, Aaron (NBC Universal)]

>>> You wrote:
My router is a LinkSys BEFSR41 V3 with 1.04.12 firmware.

>>> My reply:
Good wired router, but no 3rd party firmware available, AFAIK.  Known to
"die" (as mentioned earlier) when heavily subjected to BT.  BTW, most of
these units fail due to heat...the CPU's are passively cooled with no
heat sinks...just ambient air.  Under heavy LAN-to-WAN loads, they
overheat and die/shutdown/reboot/lock-up/whatever.  Again, they were
never designed for "heavy" routing loads, but work fine for most light
duty-cycle work as found in a home or small office.


>>> You wrote:
I presently have 3 BitTorrents downloading and I don't want to make any
changes until they're finished.  Then I'll go through and set up the IP
addresses etc.  Also, TWO of the BitTorrents are downloading at
significantly faster rates than I've typically been seeing, so I still
kind of suspect that the"slow" problems my be at the peers I'm connected
to.

>>> My reply:
BT transfers are faster as long as multiple peers have the same exact
same file available for download - the file would then be divided up
between the peers and each peer would send you a "chunk".  If only two
peers have the file available, then all requests for that particular
file will be fulfilled by those two peers.  Should 100 people request
the file at a time from those two...well, you can imagine what happens.
However, with 2 peers, it's still 100% faster/better than if it was
single sourced.  However, if 100 peers had that file, then the download
would be that much faster (up to the limits of the network
connection(s).

Also realize that if the 3 BT's you have going are from the same peers,
then you're actually slowing down the download of each individual file
as your peers are now sending you more than just one file at a time.
For reference, taken as a whole, the amount of time to BT those three
files from a single peer would be the same as if you did a conventional
D/L from that same peer.  Now, if there are three peers available, then
the amount of time to download will be, on average, the amount of time
it takes to download all three from a single peer.

I digress..

73,

  - Aaron, NN6O