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Thread: Slow downloads of latest episodes of series on astraweb?

  1. #1
    I used bittorent for a long time and lately, after reading some article about nzbs decided to try usenet. After few days I'm sold, it's much better - my connection is pretty much always maxed out, everything SSL encrypted, using it is piece of cake with nzb files. But...

    As I said, when I download large files (8-12 GB HD movies) my connection is always maxed out. Also with music downloads. But when I try to get some recent episodes of popular TV series (1.1 GB files typically) I get very bad download speeds - like 10-20 times slower, than normally.

    Why is that? Has this something to do with the fact, that these files are fresh and probably everybody tries to get them right now?

    Some additional data about my setup:
    My ISP download limit is 1 Mbit/s for now.
    I use astraweb with unlimited option, but speed capped also at 1 Mbit/s.
    Normally I use SSL and european server, 4 connections. This maxes out the download at ca. 120 KB/s, which is great. But with these recent episodes I get only 3-10 KB/s.

    I tried more connections: 10, 15, 20. It was a little better with 10 or 20 connections, but not really much (10 KB/s instead of 3 KB/s).

    I also tried non-SSL download, which also got a little better, like 12 KB/sm but it's still crap.

    I also tried different astraweb ports (SSL and non-SSL) and even the us server. No real difference.

    So what's wrong?

    If I start downloading the same episode using public bittorent tracker I get over 1000 peers and download speeds over 100 KB/s. But I'd like to use usenet all the time because of SSL security it provides.

  2. Newsgroups   -   #2
    Really no ideas?

    Recently I tried to download some HD documentaries. These files were also slightly above 1 GB and I have the same problem with them - download rate only about 4 KB/s. While the regular HD movies (8-12 GB) max out my connection (120 KB/s). What gives?

    No matter if the NZB is new or old.

  3. Newsgroups   -   #3
    SonsOfLiberty's Avatar The Lonely Wanderer
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    I've never had slow downloads on TV episodes, that's all I use Usenet for is that. Now, I know Astraweb has been having spool outage's and server outage's a few days ago...always look at Astraweb first and see if they've had any downtime or bad server connections, if it persists start a trouble ticket.
    [center]

  4. Newsgroups   -   #4
    No probs for me too on any kind of file sets.

  5. Newsgroups   -   #5
    You could also ask Astraweb to switch you to a different backbone and see if that helps. I was originally getting routed out on Limelight (llnw.net in traceroute) and getting vry inconsistent speeds. I opened a ticket and asked to get changed over to Level3 instead and now continually max my dsl connection whenever I download.

  6. Newsgroups   -   #6
    Ok, I'll try to open a ticket, thanks for your advices.

    But I don't really think it has something to do with astraweb outages, because all the big files max out my connection and the smaller ones are downloaded very slowly. At the same time I mean - the same minute or so, when I mess with order of downloads to try things out. This is the only pattern I can see at least.

    Ok, ticket then and if this won't help, I'll try out giganews perhaps...

    Thanks again.

  7. Newsgroups   -   #7
    SonsOfLiberty's Avatar The Lonely Wanderer
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    You really want to pay double for the same connection?
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  8. Newsgroups   -   #8
    Quote Originally Posted by SonsOfLiberty View Post
    You really want to pay double for the same connection?
    Well... it happens often, that a service provider (be it voip, isp, mmorpg, usenet or anything else), which has the best offer in terms of price and at first decent quality of service too, eventually gets worse when it comes to quality. It's because of rapidly growing number of people using the service. It's the cheapest option at the moment, so many people migrate, new ones choose them, right?

    Now my options are:
    1. Try to find out what the problems are - which I do right now. But I don't have very much time for this.
    2. Wait a bit and see if the problems go away automagically. It can happen if they are throttled somewhere and buy some more servers and/or bandwidth. Here I don't have to invest time, so I do it right now too
    3. If 1&2 don't work, eventually switch to another provider to see if that helps. Maybe only temporary, until astraweb overcomes their problems. This is why I mentioned Giganews.

    That's all

  9. Newsgroups   -   #9
    Just my .02 .. you're probably maxing the connections without doing any benefit, try using between 3-5 connections max, see if it helps.
    Last edited by Cristanu; 04-23-2009 at 06:45 AM.

  10. Newsgroups   -   #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Cristanu View Post
    Just my .02 .. you're probably maxing the connections without doing any benefit, try using between 3-5 connections max, see if it helps.
    No. Like I said before, I tried configurations with various number of connections starting with 4 (default for hellanzb, which I use) ending at 20 (maximum at astraweb). 20 is bad, 4 is even worse (slightly).

    Currently I use 12, which is good for most of the nzbs - big x264 movies, music, etc. (for which also 4 and 20 was ok), but not for the latest TV HD episodes and some documentaries (National Geographic etc.) I didn't have much time to investigate it lately, so I just get TV episodes from torrents. For now.
    Last edited by dwoozle; 04-25-2009 at 05:08 AM.

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