Can one survive at ScT without a seedbox?

[blackbird]

do partial seeding on new popular torrents .. download a few rar files, keep seeding it ..

[fazzy07]

ScT is not that hard to survive as some people make of it
Even though there are loads of people there with seedboxes it only helps to download at the the fastest speed and my 1 MBit home upload speed still maxes out. You ll upload 1:1 sooner or later and when you get some buffer going only then think of those glorious packs

[fOrUmAs]

i dont have seedboxes also: but sometimes is hard and sometimes not,if some file will have many leecheers and (that is rarely) or even if havent been up there yet i try as fast as i can to download from other site and when is up on sct continue to seed there for few hors. sct definitely need much more members because i dont see more than 100 snatched per torrent..except games

[game1283]

of course, haha this is answered a billion times before!

[wheeloftime]

I kinda disagree with everyone that has posted so far (nothing new there). I hardly use my sct account because it is so hard to seed back to (only really use it if there is freeleech). There are obviously ways of building a bit of a buffer, these have been mentioned already. Grab a file from somewhere else and seed it to sct, grab individual rar files, grab anything that has lots of leechers - but to me that all seems pointless. If you are grabbing files off TL to seed to sct then you already have a great source for the files you want so why not just stick to TL? you won't have any problem seeding back. Grabbing files you don't need, just because they have lots of leechers, or grabbing rar files that you don't need also seems pointless to me.
Everything that is available on sct is available elsewhere, maybe not as packs but you would have to upload a hell of a lot of rar files to get the sort of buffer you would need to d/l them. I have a 4mb connection and I find it impossible to keep a decent ratio without the methods people have been describing.
If you have a seedbox or a very fast connection then you will love sct, if you don't then just use sites that are right for your speeds.

[sugam]

I survived with 24k upload speed. I was acitve when there was freeleech and step by step set my buffer. Its hard of course, but not impossible.

[Daniel]

I hardly use my sct account because it is so hard to seed back to (only really use it if there is freeleech). There are obviously ways of building a bit of a buffer, these have been mentioned already. [...] Grabbing files you don't need, just because they have lots of leechers, or grabbing rar files that you don't need also seems pointless to me.

Creating a buffer is not pointless because it helps users with comparably slower connections to keep an acceptable ratio. Any such user will just need some time to seed torrents back to an equal ratio, sometimes this will take only a day and other times it'll be several days or even weeks.

Everybody should be able to maintain an average ratio of 1.0, especially on trackers that have any kind of free leech or users who are slowly using up their big buffers. It might of course take some additional effort to other trackers like TL where you can simply start a torrent and let the client deal with it on its own (stop when reached a certain ratio) without spending another thought on it.

[Cheffy]

Well i do not have a SCT account, But ive never ever had any problems maintaining a good ratio at any site what so ever.
If you just load enough torrents to that site you will eventually max out your connection all the time.
If you just grab the latest Hero episode you are ofc going to have a hard time seeding it back. One would actually think that its the popular shows that give you the most action, But thats not the chase. I tend to get way more uploaded on less popular shows. Since its not that many people that download them and that = less seeders.
What kills you ability to seed is amount of boxes on any given torrent. If there are 20 boxes seeding the torrent you are trying to seed with your home connection you basically have to wait until they remove the torrent before you can actually start seeding it.
But as i was saying, just load everything you have on your computer to the tracker.
If you are seeding 300 torrents there will always be someone somewhere thats trying to leech what you are seeding.

[wheeloftime]

The reason I think of it as pointless is that I can get up, click on an episode of heroes on TL and go to uni without having to think any more about it. I leave the torrent on my pc for a few days and it will end with a ratio of above 1. The alternative is I grab a torrent off TL then, wait around until it finishes downloading (you need to start seeding to sct as soon as possible), then seed it to sct. For me tv torrents come out at about 4am so by the time I have downloaded it from tl and started seeding it on sct there are way less leechers than seeders. Eventually the torrent gives me 50megs upload at sct. Finally after doing this to seven different torrents I have a 350meg buffer - enough to download one episode of heroes from sct.
I know that there are plenty of people who are prepared to put in the 'effort' to remain part of sites like sct but imo if it wasn't for the fact that these sites are rated highly in the wiaw thread, those that find it difficult to seed would just use another site that was easier.

@cheffy - the reason I used heroes as an example was that it is something I actually watch, as I said before I don't see the point in downloading a load of less popular stuff, that I will never watch, just so I can maintain a ratio - when I can just click on even the popular files at TL and have no problem seeding. I also think loading up 300 torrents to seed to sct sounds again like a lot of work (and they also wouldn't fit on my hard drive lol).

[Daniel]

wheelsoftime, I believe you misunderstood me or I didn't express myself clearly. But first: like yourself, I'm living near the GMT time which means US American shows are released between 3 and 6 am, that's a time nobody wants to get up only for downloading a release early - especially not when he cannot watch it before work anyway

The way I see a buffer is simple. Large buffers are pointless if you have no use for it, even in the remote future. But it makes sense to keep as close to an even ratio of 1.0, even taking new downloads into account. For that to happen, you need a moderate buffer that allows you to seed back an average of 100% over time. Cheffy explains the whole thing rather well: it doesn't matter much which torrent you are uploading from as long as your global ratio is okay. If you are dedicated with seeding back, then you'll never need a larger buffer than 5 gb or so and getting that should be easy enough, even on ScT.

Another thing about the difficulty of seeding, keeping ratios etc. Someone mentioned SCC as a tracker where seeding is more difficult than on ScT. I obviously cannot compare that but if one wants every advantage he can get with his SCC account, he should think about using filtered RSS seeds. The tracker even allows you to create custom feeds for the different categories. If you want some easier tracker to keep a ratio on, why not try LeechersLair, SuperTorrents or even Midnight Torrents - all three have RSS feeds as well.