Torrents and the BitTorrentfile distribution
system has become extremely popular these days and has become one of the
most popular mediums for
downloading files off the Internet. If you do not already know, a
torrent
file is a type of computer file that contains metadata about files and
folders which is shared and distributed in a large network of computers
known as trackers. You can refer to
this link for
more information about torrents. There are various torrent clients used to download files from this network and the most popular ones are:
Some users while downloading files using torrent clients experience
slow downloads which can often be caused by incorrect configuration
settings of the router or a firewall on the system. So by tinkering with
the configuration settings for a bit, you can easily increase your torrent download speed and enjoy a fast download. Below I’ll be showing you couple of methods and tips you can use to increase torrent
performance on your PC. Throughout this guide, we’ll be using uTorrent
to test and configure so it is advised you use uTorrent too.
Configuring ?Torrent for Maximum Speed and Efficiency
First we will be changing some inbuilt settings of ?Torrent to
increase the performance. For that, first we need to know our connection
upload speed. A simple way to do that is by visiting a website called
SpeedTest. The website lets you easily calculate your connection quality, the upload and download speed.
Now you’ll see something like in the picture above. You’ll need to click the BEGIN TEST to start measuring your network speed. Make sure you pause all your ongoing downloads or other pages that uses your bandwidth before you click BEGIN TEST. This is important to get the right speed of your Internet.
Once you’re done, you’ll see something like in this picture above.
Your download speed and upload speed depends entirely on your connection
so it might vary a lot. But what you need is the Upload Speed which
is 0.38 Mbps in the above case. We will need this value later on. So
either note this value down or just remember it. Now we can move onto
the next step which is calculating the values for configuring ?Torrent.
So once you’ve got your upload speed, we need to go to another
website to get the correct values for the configuration settings in ?Torrent. The website we’ll use is
Azureus Upload Settings Calculator. Click
here to visit the website. Now you will see something like this:
Now I believe you’ve seen two boxes at the top where you can enter
your upload speed, either in kilobit/second or kilobyte/second. Now you
know your speed was displayed in Megabits/second so we need to convert
it to kilobits/second. To do that, simply multiply your upload speed
with 1024. So in my case it would be
0.38*1024=380 kilobits/second. Alternately, you can use a website like
ConvertUnits to convert Mbps to Kbps.
Now what you need to do is enter this value, in to the respective
field in our Azureus webpage and get the results. So as soon as you fill
this upload speed in the website, the remaining columns will be
auto-filled with values, values that you’ve to enter in ?Torrent to optimize it. So here is how it’ll look like once you’ve entered the value into the box.
Please know that the values you get on entering your upload speed
will be different from mine and you have to use the values which YOU get to proceed to the further steps. So these are the values we will be using to optimize ?Torrent. So make sure you do not close this page since we require these values for the upcoming steps.
Once you’ve got the values, we are proceeding to the next step which is assigning the optimized values to the ?Torrent configuration settings. For that, first open up ?Torrent. Once you’ve done that, Click Options > Preferences.
Once the preferences window has opened, we need to fill up the values. For that click the Bandwidth tab on the left pane and fill the values into the respective columns like this:
Now head to the Queuing Tab from the Left Pane and fill up the rest of the values like this:
Yeah! You’re all done. Now you’ve actually optimized your ?Torrent
configuration settings to suit your internet connection and your PC.
Unlike other tutorials which promise you 100% speed increase, this is an
actual working method which you can try and use on your PC. Now we’ve
successfully covered the first part of this tutorial. In the next part,
we’ll tinker a bit more and utilize something called
ports and learn how it can really help to increase your ?Torrent speed.
Optimizing Ports To Increase Download Speed
Once we’ve configured the upload settings, it’s time to optimize our ports. If you know nothing about ports, a port is a network resource that your torrent client uses to allow other systems in the network to access your PC. All the ports have unique numbers like 3333 or 4545 which are known as TCP port number. So when other systems try to access your PC, they do it through some random ports. Suppose they’re trying to access port number 5435 and if your ports
are closed or blocked, they won’t be able to access your PC and stops
connections to your PC and thereby decrease your download speed. So
you’ll need forwarded ports to have maximum connections to PC in the network and get maximum download speed. So we will be learning how to open ports and enable others to establish a connection to your PC.
First what you need to do is disable any firewalls on your PC. If you
have a firewall or Antivirus program installed, it will block incoming
connections thereby decreasing your download speed. So you need to
disable any firewalls or antivirus programs on your PC. Alternatively,
you can add an exception for your ?Torrent client in the firewall too. This will have the same effect.
Now we need to forward a particular port. Now there are no specific instructions on how to forward a port
on your PC. It completely depends on what type and brand of router
you’ve got. The settings will completely vary and to overcome this
difficulty, we will be using a website named
PortForward.
Once you’ve entered the website, you’ll see two boxes where you can
choose your router brand and your router model and then the website will
give you specific instructions to forward a port for a particular application on your PC. So specify the brand and model and then choose ?Torrent from the list of applications to forward. Now you’ll see specific instructions just for you like this:
Now once you’ve followed all the steps it’s time to check whether you’ve successfully forwarded the port. This ensures you’ve done all the steps right and you’re
ready to use the port. For that we will be visiting the website
CanYouSeeMe. When you’re in the website, enter the port which you forwarded and click
Check Your Port to
know whether you’ve done it right. If yes, the website will say you’ve
successfully forwarded. Else it will pop up an error in which case
you’ve to repeat the steps and rectify it.
That’s it! You’ve successfully optimized your ?Torrent for maximum
download speed. All your downloads will be much faster from now on and
you’ll be having lots of connections from your PC making it even better.
If you’ve followed this guide, I can guarantee you’ve now got a faster
download speed. That sums it up for this tutorial. Thanks for reading.
