Downloading torrents with Transmission

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Just wondering if anyone can help me.. I use a MacBook Pro and just recently started using Transmission. I was using BitTorrent before and experienced extremely slow download rates. I tried looking up how to change ports etc although I have no experience of this so found it difficult to understand. I didn't notice much difference in speed after following the instructions on several sites I'd found. However when I started using Transmission I did notice quite a big increase. I'm still not downloading at particularly high speeds though. I only have 2mb broadband, so I don't expect to be able to download 2gb files in half an hour or anything, but I would like to know if there is any way I can further improve the speeds? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
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Transmission increased my download speeds alot! One great thing about it is it will try to open the port it needs for you. But it never hurts to open up port 9090 (the default port on your own).

2nd suggestion is to goto www.dslreports.com/speedtest and pick a site nearest you, and run the speedtest. run it a few times, and get an average upload and download speed for your connection with no other internet based apps running. If it gives the number in kb instead of kB then divide by 8 to get kB/s.

Now take your max upload and max download and multiply by 0.8, and enter this in the transmission preferences>>bandwidth page as the max dl and max ul speeds. by not running your internet connection at max, you won't get an overload on your connection, and it will actually help increase your ul/dl speeds. Plus it makes it easier to get online and use other internet apps.

Hope this helps,

Brian

Just wondering if anyone can help me.. I use a MacBook Pro and just recently started using Transmission. I was using BitTorrent before and experienced extremely slow download rates. I tried looking up how to change ports etc although I have no experience of this so found it difficult to understand. I didn't notice much difference in speed after following the instructions on several sites I'd found. However when I started using Transmission I did notice quite a big increase. I'm still not downloading at particularly high speeds though. I only have 2mb broadband, so I don't expect to be able to download 2gb files in half an hour or anything, but I would like to know if there is any way I can further improve the speeds? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
 
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Just wondering if anyone can help me.. I use a MacBook Pro and just recently started using Transmission. I was using BitTorrent before and experienced extremely slow download rates. I tried looking up how to change ports etc although I have no experience of this so found it difficult to understand. I didn't notice much difference in speed after following the instructions on several sites I'd found. However when I started using Transmission I did notice quite a big increase. I'm still not downloading at particularly high speeds though. I only have 2mb broadband, so I don't expect to be able to download 2gb files in half an hour or anything, but I would like to know if there is any way I can further improve the speeds? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Don't forget that with torrents your down load speeds are always capped by the number of seeders and their speeds you're downloading from. If you have port forwarding enabled and are still having some slow down loads, it could be your sources.
 
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Also some ISP's have been known to either block or slow down download speeds for certain ports so their customers don't use p2p app's as much

Try downloading at different times. It could be just the time of day. For me my entire internet gets slow between 7pm-10pm so i dont download at that times.
 
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Hi, thanks everyone for your replies, much appreciated. I'm still a little unsure if I am just doing something wrong that should be staring me in the face. Basically when using Transmission, for a little while (ie. a couple of hours) I was actually downloading a torrent at around 200kbps, which is really very fast for me, however since then it has dropped to very low speeds, normally between 4 and 20kbps. I have noticed, however, that the number of peers is still the same, so I'm confused as to why the speed should have lowered so much.

I have configured my port forwarding to 12700, on my router's configuration page, and set this in the preferences of Transmission. It says that the port is open, and has a green light next to it. Does this sound like a correct set up?
Also, should I have the 'automatically map port' option checked? I can't remember if this was checked when I was getting the high download speeds. Transmission was automatically set to limit upload speeds to 20kbps and not to limit download speeds.. should I be adjusting this? I'm sure I read somewhere a while ago that if you increase your max upload speed then your download speed will increase, generally.

I now know that it is possible for me to achieve good speeds (of around the 200kbps mark, which is more than enough for me) but unfortunately I seem to have lost them now, having only ever had them once. I do realise that speeds will obviously differ depending on the time of day, number of seeders etc, but it doesn't seem right that it should drop so drastically low and never get any higher again.

Also - when I was getting the high download speeds, I could still use my browser, MSN etc as normal, but I've noticed that now it takes an extremely long time to load a web page (and sometimes fails) and I can't log on to MSN while I'm running Transmission.

If anyone can help me with these questions I'd be very grateful. Thanks. And sorry this was so long!
 
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Just wondering if anyone can help me.. I use a MacBook Pro and just recently started using Transmission. I was using BitTorrent before and experienced extremely slow download rates. I tried looking up how to change ports etc although I have no experience of this so found it difficult to understand. I didn't notice much difference in speed after following the instructions on several sites I'd found. However when I started using Transmission I did notice quite a big increase. I'm still not downloading at particularly high speeds though. I only have 2mb broadband, so I don't expect to be able to download 2gb files in half an hour or anything, but I would like to know if there is any way I can further improve the speeds? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

Straight from the Transmission Help files:

Portforwarding a Router
In this case, it is probably OK to disable the OS X firewall, as you are already being protected by the router. To disable the firewall, open System Prefs >> Sharing >> Firewall. Click Stop.

To forward a port in your router manually:

Find out what your IP address is. You can find your computer's IP address by going to System Prefs >> Network, double-clicking on your connection (for instance, Built-in Ethernet), and clicking the TCP/IP tab. It's probably something like 192.168.1.100, or 10.0.1.2.
Open Transmission, go to preferences, and enter a number for the port. It is recommended you pick a random number between 49152 and 65535. Let's use 50001 for now. Then quit Transmission.
Go into your router configuration screen. Normally this is done via your web browser using the address 192.168.0.1 etc.
NB: Apple's Airport uses an application called 'Airport Admin Utility' to configure it.
Find the port forwarding (sometimes called port mapping) screen. While the page will be different for each router generally you will enter something similar to the following:
For 'Application' type 'Trans'.
For 'Start Port' and 'End port' type in the port you chose in Step 2. eg 50001.
For Protocol, choose Both.
For IP address, type in your IP address you found in Step 1. eg 10.0.1.2.
Check Enable.
Click save settings.
For more comprehensive instructions specific to your router, click here and choose your router from the list.


If you find yourself having to change your router settings all the time, a static IP address might be beneficial.

What is a static IP?
Where your computer is assigned an IP address which does not change. This can be helpful if you have a laptop or have multiple computers on your network. While it makes things a bit simpler, you don't have to have a static IP for BitTorrent or Port Forwarding to work.

A dynamic IP address assigned by your wireless router for example will most likely not change unless you reboot your computer, or leave and rejoin the network. Thus, having a static IP isn't really necessary, especially if your router supports UPnP.


How do I get a static IP address?
Go to System Prefs >> Network, double-click on your connection (for instance, Built-in Ethernet), and click the TCP/IP tab.
Write down the IP, Subnet Mask and Router addresses.
Go to your router 'status' page via your web browser (Airport Admin Utility if you are using an Airport BS), and write down the DNS Server addresses. Alternatively, you can enter your router's internal IP (e.g. 192.168.0.1). This is sometimes quicker, as it refers to the router instead of the server.
Then, return to the TCP/IP page in System Prefs.
Choose "Manually" from the Configure IPv4 drop down menu.
Enter the IP address you wish to have, eg 192.168.0.100, or 10.0.1.100. It should be of a similar format to the IP address you found in step 2, with only the last number changing.
NB: You cannot have a static IP address that's within the DHCP range. Thus it is recommended that you make the last digit of your address large enough to discount this possibility, like we have done in our examples.
Fill in the other boxes using the addresses you wrote down in steps 2 and 3.
Click 'Apply Now'.
 
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Hi, thanks everyone for your replies, much appreciated. I'm still a little unsure if I am just doing something wrong that should be staring me in the face. Basically when using Transmission, for a little while (ie. a couple of hours) I was actually downloading a torrent at around 200kbps, which is really very fast for me, however since then it has dropped to very low speeds, normally between 4 and 20kbps. I have noticed, however, that the number of peers is still the same, so I'm confused as to why the speed should have lowered so much.

I have configured my port forwarding to 12700, on my router's configuration page, and set this in the preferences of Transmission. It says that the port is open, and has a green light next to it. Does this sound like a correct set up?
Also, should I have the 'automatically map port' option checked? I can't remember if this was checked when I was getting the high download speeds. Transmission was automatically set to limit upload speeds to 20kbps and not to limit download speeds.. should I be adjusting this? I'm sure I read somewhere a while ago that if you increase your max upload speed then your download speed will increase, generally.

I now know that it is possible for me to achieve good speeds (of around the 200kbps mark, which is more than enough for me) but unfortunately I seem to have lost them now, having only ever had them once. I do realise that speeds will obviously differ depending on the time of day, number of seeders etc, but it doesn't seem right that it should drop so drastically low and never get any higher again.

Also - when I was getting the high download speeds, I could still use my browser, MSN etc as normal, but I've noticed that now it takes an extremely long time to load a web page (and sometimes fails) and I can't log on to MSN while I'm running Transmission.

If anyone can help me with these questions I'd be very grateful. Thanks. And sorry this was so long!

If you care to disclose your sources, let us know. What you're describing is what I often hear people describe. They can get huge download speeds for the first part of the file but it slows an extreme amount or stalls completely near the end. That could be that maybe one of the seeders has a complete file or there may not be one at all. You can download torrents from other people that are currently downloading it at the same time.

So if 15 people are downloading a file via a torrent and only 1 of those 15 have the complete file, you'll be able to download at 500 kb/s until you get to where only certain users have more of a complete file than the rest and then your download speed will drop. If the 15th person with the full file logs off, you'll continue to download until you have the largest portion of the file that everyone else has and then it will stop.

I hope I explained that right.

Which is why your download source from a torrent plays a huge role in how fast a file down loads or how much of that file you can download.
 
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I've been using Azureus for around a year, and only ever seem to hover around the 10- 20 kbps mark. As he say's above, it's quite possible, and indeed normal to start of fast then as you get more of the file you need less form others so you slow down. A big problem is not enough people seeding a file, so too many wanting, not enough giving. Also your ISP may have some issues with P2P as well so worth checking. Since I moved to France and signed up with Noo's i've never got as good speeds as I had in the UK and I believe that Noo's apply some cap or limit ports or something.
I've just tried Transmission and can't see any noticeable difference at all.
To be honest, i'm resigned to it all now. You very rarely will get a good speed, it really depends on your sources.
 
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I"ve noticed huge differences in using Azureus and Transmission. Transmission is overall much faster than Azureus ever was. I do miss being ablel to select only certain pieces of a file as you ccan in Azureus though.

These guys have it dead on though. Basically the slow down after a while is due to both of the things they describe above.

With Torrents you ware getting a little piece of the file from each other user sharing it. so if all of the users have a small piece, and only 1 or 2 have the whoe file, in the beginning you will be able to get pieces from everyone, thus the faster dl speed. After a while, you will only be able to get pieces from the ones who have all or almost all of the file, so the speed will slow. Also, if the ones with the whole file are sharing other whole files, then their upload speed is split between multiple files, so this will slow down their upload of pieces to you.

finally, don't be a leech...seed the file to at least a ratio of 1:1 of dl:ul. Preferably 1:2 of dl to ul. This keeps the dl sppeds up for others to seed also.

I personally like the sites that track your dl:ul ratio, and cut you off if you don't seed.

Enjoy,

Brian
 
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Thanks for everyone's tips, much appreciated. I have been able to get better download speeds with Transmission. One more question though - is there a way to define more than one port in Transmission's preferences? Am I correct in thinking that if you're downloading more than one torrent at a time you should open up a port for each, ie. if you're downloading four torrents at a time have the opening port at 12700 or whatever and your closing port at 12703?
 

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