Ratio vs. Uploading

[iGene]

What helps the file sharing community more:

A ratio of 2, with 25 GB uploaded

-or-

A ratio of 1, with 35 GB uploaded

[Damnatory]

That really depends on a lot of factors. Though it's mainly buffer space to go over 2:1.

For instance, if you have a ratio at 1.00 what happens to all your peers when your account is disabled for dropping too low because you couldn't keep up? They get dropped off, and your torrent is then wasted bandwidth and a lower ratio for them. Unless of course someone manages to get 100% before you get the boot.

[mdp123]

I reckon both ratio and upload status should show importance to the user and network.

[$hady]

i liek to trey and have 2:1 for those days i feell liek dling lots

[lynx]

All file sharing relies on the fact that the overall ratio must be 1.0 - simple mathematics means that the amount uploaded must equal the amount downloaded. This fact is not dependent on the method used to share files.

Much as we may dislike them there will always be leeches, so someone has to make up their shortfall otherwise the system fails. Consequently is must be better to have a ratio of 2 than a ratio of 1, no matter what the overall upload amount is, always assuming the amount isn't too small to be significant.

If you've got a ratio of 2.0 with 25GB then you've only downloaded 12.5GB. Assuming you are going to keep downloading and will maintain this ratio then eventually you will have downloaded 17.5GB, at which point you will have statistics of 2.0 ratio and 35GB upload which is obviously better.

If you don't intend to maintain the ratio, or you don't intend to keep downloading, then it doesn't really matter which is better.