To RAR or not to RAR

[yayyyyyy]

it's faster to race different rars to different drftpd slaves...

torrenters do not need rars

you are arguing about loosing time while unpacking... why should the uploader loose that time just to make you happy?

[Skiz]

It's good when using FTP and you can transfer 10 files at once going 250kb/s as opposed to one file at 250kb/s.

Hmm...
never thought of that.

Same with newgroups. Depending on your ISP depends on how many connections you can have open. Mine allows 3 for a total max speed of around 855 KB/s.

They are also packed that way for ease of use for the initial uploader, not the downloader. They couldn't care less how long it takes you you to unRAR or download a file. The person posting the file must spend a lot of time and effort to do so. Naturally, he wants the process to go as quickly as possible, and posting a 4.5 gigabyte DVD can take a while, right? Hence, the use of multiple RAR files to make his life easier.

In the event of a mishap, corrupted segment, etc., having multiple files allows the initial uploader to potentially re-upload only a small portion of the orginal file as all the other RAR parts may be just fine. All that saves everyone involved both time and bandwidth.

Hope that makes more sense to you now.

[toti]

I hate it

[danio]

Regardless of all the arguments for why trackers should or shouldn't have unrared files in their torrents instead of rared, I think that what plays the decisive role is ensuring that credits always goes to the people who created the release. Thus I think it's a good idea to keep the releases untouched through the distribution chains.. otherwise files can often be renamned along the way.

..and after all, is it really that inconvenient to unrar the files? it takes seconds or a couple of minutes if it is very large files.

[Sylar666]

Torrent - technology does not need rars by nature. The Scene - FTP, FXP - uses it. Torrent files have to be the same by definition (hashing). So You have to agree with BitmeTv on that.

[Sekai]

The best thing about RAR's are that it proves that it's the original release. Someone might have tampered with for example the program that I'm downloading. RAR's prove that it's authentic.

[jukesta]

I prefer No Rar.

100th Post!

[Skiz]

The best thing about RAR's are that it proves that it's the original release. Someone might have tampered with for example the program that I'm downloading. RAR's prove that it's authentic.

No, no it doesn't. Someone could easily "tamper" with a file and then simply reRAR it.

[necromantic]

Personally I dislike rar archives

-rars are not necessary to prevent corruption
-waste the user's time
-waste the user's drive space

but
-allow the uploader to replace corrupted rars instead of re-uploading the whole file
-are easier for the uploaders
-allow faster ftp transfers (apparently)

[DasFox]

With Usenet Rars are good as long as Par files have been included in case of corruption and incomplete uploads which happen all the time on Usenet, but on Torrent trackers I have never seen this problem, so not sure if there is a real need for rar files unless someone is on a slow connection and just wants to grab a few at a time, or in case of a connection problem, so you don't have to start the download over again.