Difference between Seeds and Peers

Windows specific questions, problems.
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gramgreen

Difference between Seeds and Peers

Post by gramgreen »

Whats up yall...

Been trying to understand the difference between seeds and peers.
If you have a torrent with alot of peers but no seeds is there a way to get it to download?

Also the number of seeds and peers inside the parenthesis vs outside
For instance if it looks like seeds 2 (34) is there a way to get access to the seeds in the parathesis?
I've had instances of torrents with seeds 0 (44) which will not download.
Is there a way to make these seeds available?

Thanks in advance to any explanations or advice.
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Zoloft
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Re: Difference between Seeds and Peers

Post by Zoloft »

A seed is someone who has 100% of the file. A peer is someone who does not (yet) have 100% of the file. If you see something like 4(8) that means you are connected to 4 of the available 8 computers, either as a seed or a peer.

If there are 0(0) seeds, it's very doubtful you'll be able to get 100% of the file right now, but, seeds may always come and go. It is not 100% impossible, as the peers, even if there are no seeds, may already have 100% of the file distributed among them, even if none of them individually have 100% yet.

As for connecting to the (X) people, other than making sure you are set up correctly (primarily, your port is open to qbt), there is little or nothing you can do to force yourself to connect to someone. For example, they may have only 4 upload slots available, and four other people are already taking those slots. Your instance of QBT and the torrent program they are using will automatically manage who connects to whom, based on need, settings and routing.
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Nemo
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Re: Difference between Seeds and Peers

Post by Nemo »

Welcome gramgreen,

Interesting read about this subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_ ... rent_terms
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