bittorrent mystery

[Mikkel L. Ellertson]

Aaron Konstam wrote:
> I wanted to download the latest FC6 respin CDs. I went to the web
> location and found the correct bittorrent and clicked to download it.
> The bittorrent GUI opened and the download started. Now I was connected
> to a system with an Internet speed of 45 Mb/s but the GUI said the
> download would take 15 hours. Well the respin has 5 CDs. I have a
> downloaded a single 600+ Meg CD in less than an hour (actually I think
> it was much less). So I can't understand why the bittorrent download
> should take 15 hours.
> 
> I have done this before but it has been a long time ago. I must be doing
> something wrong but what? Any ideas?

A couple of things to check - do you have a download speed limit
set, so that it does not use the full bandwidth when downloading? Do
you have your firewall properly configured so that you can seed as
well as download? If not, this can limit your download speed. How
many seeds are there, compared to the number of clients, and how
many are you connected to?

One other thing to keep in mind is that the time estimate when you
first start downloading is usually high, and drops as you connect to
more feeds. It also tends to change during the download. Depending
on how the client calculates the time remaining, it may get less
sensitive to rate changes as the download progresses - more data to
average, so temporary fluctuations in download speed do not affect
it as much.

Mikkel
-- 

  Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons,
for thou art crunchy and taste good with Ketchup!