partial seeding improves your ratio - a myth

many people think partial seeding is a good way to improve your ratio. let me tell you why i think this is wrong.

let's pretend you grab one rar of a popular xvid and seed it. let's also pretend the torrent gets 20 snatches after you start to seed:

20 x 14mb = 280mb upload - 14mb = 266mb buffer, file ratio 20.0

let's now pretend you donwload the whole movie.

20 x 700mb = 14gb upload - 700mb = 13,3gb buffer, file ratio 20.0

the ratio improvement is exactly the same. it doesn't matter wether you grab only a part of the torrent or the whole thing. the key factor is the total number of snatches you get.

when you download the whole movie you can:

a.) watch it (which is the purpose of downloading movies in the first place)
b.) get a much higher buffer!

please don't tell me that you save harddisk space. if you can't afford 700mb saved to your hd, get a bigger one (they're cheap) or delete some files.

the only case where partial downloading makes sense is, if there's a pack and you only want a portion of the content.

wat if the 20 snatches are by 20 bit-tards who believe in downloading a single rar ....

EDIT :- Anyways i thght that partial seeding was when there was like a very big movie pack( <25gb) and you wanted just some movies so u just download them and seed them ...

If you have a slow connection, like me, then partial seeding is better.
It takes quite a lot of time to leech a 700mb movie with 0.25mbit/0.25mbit.
The others snatchers who will jump on the file after me will pass me quite fast and I will be the one who leeches from them. Always when I grab a movie it will only leech, not seed at all....

LOL

Partial seeding is probably the only/best way for newbies to increase their ratio esp for the latest torrents(esp on bitmetv with RSS/IRC feeds enabled).

Let's say you dl 14-20mb of the latest 172 mb torrent the second it's released. You'd be able to upload about 150-250 mb in a matter of a few hours with an upspeed of 30-40 KB/s. You can continue to partially seed that torrent to feed your ratio buffer. This is especially helpful for users with bad speeds.

However,If I choose to dl the entire 172 mb, by the time I finished dlding it there would be so many seeders that I'd be seeding back about 20-30 mb.

In conclusion, partial seeding works like a charm for me(esp on bmtv) and it's certainly not a myth.

partial seeding work fine the only real problem with it is getting in trouble with staff... to keep in the best standing on sites you don't want any confusion... nor do you want them to suspect you of cheating or scamming or whatnot... partial seeding leads to account stats and a download history that doesn't really match up.

personally i'd rather not risk losing an account over it.

They allow it on TL
I asked the staff, they said its okay to partial-seed to increase my ratio but not too much...

Partial seeding is not only allowed,its encouraged!

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Originally Posted by Polarbear

many people think partial seeding is a good way to improve your ratio. let me tell you why i think this is wrong.

let's pretend you grab one rar of a popular xvid and seed it. let's also pretend you get 20 snatches after you start to seed:

20 x 14mb = 280mb upload - 14mb = 266mb buffer, file ratio 20.0

let's now pretend you donwload the whole movie.

20 x 700mb = 14gb upload - 700mb = 13,3gb buffer, file ratio 20.0

the ratio improvement is exactly the same. it doesn't matter wether you grab only a part of the torrent or the whole thing. the key factor is the total number of snatches you get.

when you download the whole movie you can:

a.) watch it (which is the purpose of downloading movies in the first place)
b.) get a much higher buffer!

please don't tell me that you save harddisk space. if you can't afford 700mb saved to your hd, get a bigger one (they're cheap) or delete some files.

the only case where partial downloading makes sense is, if there's a pack and you only want a portion of the content.

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Agree with the sentiment generally, but there is a flaw in your maths dude. Unless using a seedbox or something (in which case I can't see someone needing to p.seed anyway), its going to be an awful lot easier for someone on a weak home connection to upload 20 x 14mb than it will be 20 x 700mb. It takes a hell of a lot longer, and the seed - leech ratio will be increasing exponentially as you go, making it infinitely harder to continue maxing your upload.

Before I changed isp a year or so ago, what with throttling and with the damn slow top rate, I could only u/l a max of ~1gb/day no matter what. Were I to have partial seeded I could have gradually attained a better ratio on the sites I was using...... however, I didn't, I just downloaded only what I knew I had the b/w to seed back, and always kept a positive ratio anyway (including on some sites supposedly among the hardest to seed on).

The real problem with partial seeding (on anything other than packs) is that its simply lame. Firstly, you're downloading something you can't actually watch/listen to, as you point out, which is silly. Secondly, it distorts the numbers in a swarm, making it appear like there's leeches when there aren't. Anyone who says they can't maintain a ratio without it is just wrong, they just need to stop downloading so much and start seeding longer.

Also, what is it with "buffering" accounts anyway. I mean, seriously, why? The ideal ratio for a user to have on a site is surely 1.05? On sites where I have a ratio significantly more than that because of FL, bonuses, or just natural seeding for a long time, I deliberately leave some torrents for days, weeks even before leeching them so that others who might need the u/l more can get it. Then I seed the files for weeks myself, keeping them alive and knowing that my b/w won't be too saturated by having tons active.

The only justification for deliberately building huge buffers that I can see are (a) account trading (excessively lame), (b) e-penis (even more lame), or (c) because you want to h&r later (the most lame).

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Originally Posted by soulreaper

Partial seeding is not only allowed,its encouraged!

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Not on all sites.... its explicitly against the rules on TorrentBytes :clap:

I think you make a bad assumption.
20 x 14mb = 280mb upload - 14mb = 266mb buffer, file ratio 20.0
is a reasonable assumption.

But
20 x 700mb = 14gb upload - 700mb = 13,3gb buffer, file ratio 20.0,
is just way off, even if the seeding time is double this may not happen.

I fully appreciate that some people have a hard time maintaining ratio on certain sites but in my opinion partial seeding is just another way of cheating.
Trackers need to look at changing their policies so people don't have to resort to playing dirty.

its no exactly true what u say polarbear , lets say i have a poor connection . well if i would download the entire movie while some other members download it with their seedbox then by the time i will finish they already seeded the hell out of this file and im left with a poor ratio on that torrent with no way to get it back up .

The problem with your analysis is that it gets harder to seed as the torrent gets older, especially on xvid torrents, like in your example. As the leechers become seeders, you will have competition for those 20 snatches, and it will be almost impossible to get 13GB uploaded on a 700mb torrent file. Of course, it can be possible, but it will require a very very good line, or a very very long time. I dont know many people who have good connections that partial seed. The people who partial seed are those new to bittorent/trackers and/or have a very connection. Expecting somebody which a 50kb/s upload to get 13GB uploaded on a 700mb movie is just out of this planet.

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Originally Posted by droste

If you have a slow connection, like me, then partial seeding is better.
It takes quite a lot of time to leech a 700mb movie with 0.25mbit/0.25mbit.
The others snatchers who will jump on the file after me will pass me quite fast and I will be the one who leeches from them. Always when I grab a movie it will only leech, not seed at all....

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if you have a slow connection faster peers in the swarm will be favored by leechers, but that has nothing to do with how much data you offer.

you jump on a brand new torrent. as soon as data is on your hd, you are able seed it to other peers. the more data you get, the more you can seed. it's linear. that's why it doesn't make any sense to stop downloading before the torrent is finished.

there's no time advantage. by the time you continue to download you're already seeding that small portion you originally wanted to stop afterwards.

peers don't care wether you're a partial seeder or not. they take what you have.

again. partial seeding doesn't have an advantage. if you're connection is slow, it's slow. you will not be able to upload more if you offer less chunks to the swarm.

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Originally Posted by zedex

its no exactly true what u say polarbear , lets say i have a poor connection . well if i would download the entire movie while some other members download it with their seedbox then by the time i will finish they already seeded the hell out of this file and im left with a poor ratio on that torrent with no way to get it back up .

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by the time you finished your portion of the file, the seedboxes will have it as well and seeded the hell out of that portion. it doesn't make a difference.

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Originally Posted by Polarbear

you jump on a brand new torrent. as soon as data is on your hd, you are able seed it to other peers. the more data you get, the more you can seed. it's linear. that's why it doesn't make any sense to stop downloading before the torrent is finished.

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That ties into another and maybe bigger problem having to jump on a torrent as soon as it's made available.
Fast connection or slow on some trackers if you fail to do this you are basically screwed.
There should be bonuses available for time that you seed beyond get out of jail free card.

Partial seeding never had an advantage over snatching the whole thing. It was just a way for people with slow connections, or new to the tracker, to build up a nice cushion first. Even if you have more chunks to upload, doesnt mean you will be able to upload them 20 times, since the number of chunks you have will be a lot greater and a person with a slow connection wouldnt be able to seed all of them. By the time a person with a slow connection seeds back an amount of data, the leechers may have already gotten the other chunks of data from faster seeders, leaving you with no one to seed to. The amount you have uploaded then will depend on your connection - if you have a fast/decent one then you should have more than 700mb uploaded. If not, then you will have a negative ratio, but if you had partial seeded, it wouldve been positive. It all comes down to your speed.

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Originally Posted by TP635

I think you make a bad assumption.
20 x 14mb = 280mb upload - 14mb = 266mb buffer, file ratio 20.0
is a reasonable assumption.

But
20 x 700mb = 14gb upload - 700mb = 13,3gb buffer, file ratio 20.0,
is just way off, even if the seeding time is double this may not happen.

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that would mean peers prefer you because you offer less chunks. that's not true. when 20 people snatch the movie, there are only 20 people for your one rar file as well. you won't seed more in relation with your partial dl.

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Originally Posted by renwickftw

By the time a person with a slow connection seeds back an amount of data, the leechers may have already gotten the other chunks of data from faster seeders, leaving you with no one to seed to.

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the same happens with your chunk. you all make one error in reasoning. of course the later you jump on a torrent, the less snatchers you get for your chunks. it just simply doesn't matter how many chunks you have. they're offered instantly to the other peers. chunks are downloaded and offered simultaniously. the amount of chunks doesn't play a role. there's no time advantage when you stop downloading.

peers have only two criteria why to connect to another peer and download. availabilty (is the chunk i need there) and speed (let's neclet encryption and others). so you simply can't connect to more peers, hence upload more if you partial seed.

I recently joined bitmetv and I haven't used it much but if i didn't partial seed and upload some of the 0day files from usenet I wouldn't be able to keep my 1.0 ratio.

Ideally I wouldn't do it cos I know the tracker can't show that i have stopped downloading and am now seeding partially (if it could that would be a great innovation btw.) - it doesn't hurt the swarm in any way.

I jsut don't want to get in a downloading trap and not be able to seed which is very likely cos my connection is 20mbit/230kB/s. I need to leave my pc on to get over 1.0...i plan to donate instead (and get a connection which doesn't count upload data.) but can't right now.

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Originally Posted by Polarbear

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Originally Posted by TP635

I think you make a bad assumption.
20 x 14mb = 280mb upload - 14mb = 266mb buffer, file ratio 20.0
is a reasonable assumption.

But
20 x 700mb = 14gb upload - 700mb = 13,3gb buffer, file ratio 20.0,
is just way off, even if the seeding time is double this may not happen.

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that would mean peers prefer you because you offer less chunks. that's not true.

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Seeding 13.3GB on a 700MB file IS way off, for a person with a bad connection. Let's say that this person has 100kb/s upload, which is pretty generous. It will take him 46 minutes to seed the 280mb. For him to seed 14gb, it will take him 2333 minutes, or 38 hours. Now that is calculated at max speed. Do you think you can seed a 700mb file for 38 hours straight at max speed? I would think not, especially if it is a popular one. Now as I said before, this calculation is very generous, many people dream of having 100kb/s upload.

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Originally Posted by Polarbear

Quote:

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Originally Posted by renwickftw

By the time a person with a slow connection seeds back an amount of data, the leechers may have already gotten the other chunks of data from faster seeders, leaving you with no one to seed to.

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the same happens with your chunk.

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But since you are downloading a lot less, it will be easier to hit a good ratio, compared to a big file.

the solution is to make some files freeleech so that ppl can download the whole file and seed it back without worries . like ppl here said the main problem is the comptition between seedbox owners and home connection users and its always the same ... seedbox wins by far .

Why do people assume a seedbox is the answer to everything ?
If there are no leechers a f**k lot of good it does you.

thats why i have the title "super leecher" on many trackers :D 256kb upl FTW !!!

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Originally Posted by renwickftw

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Originally Posted by Polarbear

that would mean peers prefer you because you offer less chunks. that's not true.

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Seeding 13.3GB on a 700MB file IS way off, for a person with a bad connection. Let's say that this person has 100kb/s upload, which is pretty generous. It will take him 46 minutes to seed the 280mb. For him to seed 14gb, it will take him 2333 minutes, or 38 hours. Now that is calculated at max speed. Do you think you can seed a 700mb file for 38 hours straight at max speed? I would think not, especially if it is a popular one. Now as I said before, this calculation is very generous, many people dream of having 100kb/s upload.

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you are telling me, that more data needs longer seedtime. what does this have to do with the fact, that the small portion of the file won't be snatched more than the whole movie? it's pretty clear that it will take more time to get a higher buffer. that doesn't explain a possible benefit of seeding only a part of the file.

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Originally Posted by Polarbear

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Originally Posted by renwickftw

By the time a person with a slow connection seeds back an amount of data, the leechers may have already gotten the other chunks of data from faster seeders, leaving you with no one to seed to.

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the same happens with your chunk.

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Originally Posted by renwickftw

But since you are downloading a lot less, it will be easier to hit a good ratio, compared to a big file.

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why? it doesn't play a role how big the file is, it depends on how much it is snatched. the amount of snatchers you get doesn't negative correlate with the amount of chunks you have of a torrent. it doesn't correlate at all! so it's not easier to hit a good ratio if you download less. you're wrong.


partial seeding is useless and doesn't have any advantage in terms of ratio or buffer. my opinion remains that it's a myth. download the whole thing and you'll end up with the same ratio improvement but a higher buffer and some content to enjoy.

Maybe it is useless for buffering an account but it is really usefull for checking a torrent (watching a sample for example)

A myth... And a good one, it's almost a fact nowadays.

Nice work polarbear.

your logic is seriously flawed Polarbear, and it would only work if everyone had the same upload speed.

If someone has a 100mbit upload VS my 512k upload, its going to take me ALOT longer to upload 13gb than it is 223MB. In the time i upload 13gb on 512k upload - there wont be any leechers left on the torrent so i'd get shafted in the end which is why partial seeding is better on slower connections as you can compete with faster connections

and the point of all this is.......?

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Originally Posted by sabre

your logic is seriously flawed Polarbear, and it would only work if everyone had the same upload speed.

If someone has a 100mbit upload VS my 512k upload, its going to take me ALOT longer to upload 13gb than it is 223MB. In the time i upload 13gb on 512k upload - there wont be any leechers left on the torrent so i'd get shafted in the end which is why partial seeding is better on slower connections as you can compete with faster connections

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you don't seem to understand it and you mix up two problems that have nothing to do with each other.

of course it takes you longer to upload a certain amount of data with a slower connection. of course faster peers are prefered in the swarm.

it just doesn't matter how much of the file you have.

in your scenario you probably won't get a lot of snatches regardles wether you have 1 rar file, 10, or the whole file. if there aren't any leechers, there aren't. if other seed faster they get the peers.

i just doesn't play a role how much you have downloaded of the file. if nobody leeches the whole movie, nobody leeches your partial download as well.

in the end the ratio in relation to your downloaded amount of data will be exactly the same.

you won't upload more if you download less. no matter when, how fast, how slow or how long you seed. the number of downloaded chunks is not critical for your upload amount. you can't influence upload by reducing the number of chunks hence partial downloading.

i'm starting to repeat myself now. :pinch:

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Originally Posted by puckface

and the point of all this is.......?

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go bump your trade threads.

As has been stated previous it has to do with time.

I have about 100kB/s upstream, so if I grab 1 .rar of a movie I can have that pushed back out in 5 minutes, then any buffer I make after that is just a bonus. The entire 700MB movie would take about 2 hours to get back (at full speed).

It doesn't matter how many snatchers come after me, the seeds are increasing rapidly as time passes. Chances are I'm only going to stay maxed out on upload for a few minutes, while the seeders are becoming more and more saturated.

Anyway, cool thread :) Nice to see a good argument from tim e to time. I rarely partial seed like this, sometimes I will on bitmetv if I don't have other torrents active, and feel like making 1GB or so on there one night. Usually I'll pick a popular tv night in the fall season and just grab 20MB of each .avi and leave 10 of them going overnight, and make a bit of ratio.. no big deal though.

People who do it on TL/SCC sites like that are kinda silly in my opinioin. There is HNR rules on these trackers so you're buffer really isn't of much use unless you're trying to snatch old stuff but don't have the buffer.

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Originally Posted by Polarbear

you don't seem to understand it and you mix up two problems that have nothing to do with each other.

of course it takes you longer to upload a certain amount of data with a slower connection. of course faster peers are prefered in the swarm.

it just doesn't matter how much of the file you have.

in your scenario you probably won't get a lot of snatches regardles wether you have 1 rar file, 10, or the whole file. if there aren't any leechers, there aren't. if other seed faster they get the peers.

i just doesn't play a role how much you have downloaded of the file. if nobody leeches the whole movie, nobody leeches your partial download as well.

in the end the ratio in relation to your downloaded amount of data will be exactly the same.

you won't upload more if you download less. no matter when, how fast, how slow or how long you seed. the number of downloads of your chunks is critical for your upload amount. you can't influence this by reducing this number the number of chunks hence partial downloading.

i'm starting to repeat myself now. :pinch:

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First off, I dont think that anybody has said that if you partial seed, you will upload an amount greater than if you had the whole file. If anyone said that, then they'd be absurd. But, partial seeding does help.

However, in my past experience, I have partial seeded a single rar (50mb) from a DVDR (4.7gb) and managed to upload 1gb with my 60kb/s upload (which never got maxed anyway), many times. So that's a ratio of 20. Now according to you, I would've gotten the same ratio if I had snatched the whole file. 20 * 4.7 is 97. 97gb. For me to get 97gb on a single torrent with my connection is unreal. It will never happen, maybe in a year of seeding, if I got lucky. Whereas the 1gb that I uploaded from partial seeding took 3 days.

Partial seeding will never get you more upload than if you got the whole file. Never. However, it will raise your ratio, and is a cheap and fast way of getting a cushion.

Your posts are normally pretty good Polarbear, but you are way off on this one. I can tell you from experience that partial seeding is a lot more effective than full seeding at building ratio. Your logic in the OP assumes that you don't have to compete with other seeders.

part is useful when you up is not very good
i will increase your ratio
it is no problem

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Originally Posted by apextwin146

wat if the 20 snatches are by 20 bit-tards who believe in downloading a single rar ....

EDIT :- Anyways i thght that partial seeding was when there was like a very big movie pack( <25gb) and you wanted just some movies so u just download them and seed them ...

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Then that isn't a snatch. A "snatch" is a full download.

Until the torrent has been downloaded in its entirety, it has not been snatched and you are not a seeder.

You will remain a leecher until you've snatched the torrent.

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Originally Posted by tknaught

Your posts are normally pretty good Polarbear, but you are way off on this one. I can tell you from experience that partial seeding is a lot more effective than full seeding at building ratio. Your logic in the OP assumes that you don't have to compete with other seeders.

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please explain to me how seeding only a portion of a file gives you an advantage in the swarm when you compete with other seeders.

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Originally Posted by Polarbear

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Originally Posted by puckface

and the point of all this is.......?

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go bump your trade threads.

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What does that have to do with anything? Did someone get their feelings hurt that no one likes their pointless post? Poor baby. Nice use of red and green though in the OP, quite impressive.

Polarbear, if two different people, who live on the same street, have the same connection of 10kb/s upload max and have the same ISP. One of them downloads 15mb of a movie. The other one downloads the whole 700mb. They start the same torrent at the same time - 1 minute after it hits the tracker. The stop their torrent after 12 hours of seeding. Who do you think will have the better torrent ratio? Basically, the only variable in this is the amount they upload.

There is at least one more point about partial seeding that does not help the community as a whole and especially for members on trackers with wait times

1. By taking one 14 mb segment and seeding it to say 280 mb you have well over seeded that piece of the torrent now say 10 people did that and only 25 actually wanted the full torrent the people that actually wanted the torrent are being hampered by people who actually dont want what they down loaded and this could actually cause them wait times
I know most will think so what I don't care it helps me build a buffer, but at some point it may be YOU that is hampered by this action.

I must admit as a whole I agree with bear there should be no need to over seed a single rar file.

Only time I think part snatches are ok is from packs where you want selected episodes, films, games etc to complete or build up that collection

partial seeding can be interesting when using a poor seedbox, because your upload speed is awful until you finish downloading a file, it's then more efficient to partial seed

i remember using a leeware crap more than one year ago and it was the best way to get some buffer on sites with fast uploaders like sct and it didn't hurt anyone as far as i know

but on a quality seedbox, forget it, you take the whole thing

at home, well, i never thought about doing partial seeding but i guess it could be helpful when you start on a new tracker

anyway, what really bugs me is people who partial seed on site like blackcats

it completly screws up the seed point system, those partial seeder being identified as leechers, the seed point system then never kicks in

the whole thing depends if you have high speeds .. and you stay a longer time in the swarm

Hey PB, for once I disagree, you're wrong, partial seeding can work & does help those with slower connections get some buffer on popular torrents :P

It is easy to grab 1GB of a new DVD, movie or game or xbox game, stop and then seed back 4 or 5GB, or more even before the torrent dies, thus gaining them 3 or 4GB for something they wanted later.

As long as it is within the trackers rules, so what?

Now whether it ever should be allowed is another debate for another time. For me, it should never be allowed, grab the whole torrent to 100% or grab nothing, but hey I don't make the rules, so leave alone what works for some.

it shouldn`t be allowed but how then again when you want to take only the sample from the movie what will happen ?