How to seed?
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@DeepSeaTide Yeah, Proton was going to be my likely go-to when I renew, but @MrMazda also mentioned PrivateVPN.com and that he uses it. Given that he demonstrates time and agin that he knows his stuff, that seems worth investigating too before making a final decision.
BTW, I'm not ignoring your earlier question. I'm midway through a fairly lengthy answer in another tab right now!
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I'm assuming that as a new member, you haven't actually downloaded or uploaded much yet. Those absolute numbers are important when looking at how uploading affects your ratio. Whether you've uploaded 11gb and downloaded 10gb, or uploaded 990gb and downloaded 900gb, you still have a ratio of 1.1. But if you then upload a further 1gb, you're suddenly at 1.2 with the former, while it hardly registers with the latter.
Theoretically (and probably simplistically) if you can download, you should be able to upload. I'd start by making sure you can actually see what's happening. You're using qBittorrent, yes?
You can change which columns are displayed by hovering over the column header names bar and right-clicking (1). This brings up a list of all the columns that can be shown. Simply click one to add or remove it. You can sort the list of torrents by any column simply by clicking on that column's name. The ones I find most useful for monitoring uploading are "Uploaded" and "Last Activity" (2) and "Up Speed". (3) In the below screenshot, I've sorted by "Last Activity", so I can see what is currently uploading and what has been active recently.
Display those columns on your app, and it will show you what is / has been uploading, and how much. This will at least help establish that you can upload, and are doing so. Assuming that's working OK, the question then becomes one of choosing the best torrents for seeding.
Before getting into that, let's address how much file storage you can use. I split my seeding files into "Short term" and "Long term". qBittorrent has a handy tagging feature so I tag my torrents appropriately (4). These also work as filters, so you'll notice in the screenshot I've selected "!!S" (my "Short term" tag) so all the torrents listed in the main panel are only the short term ones.
The long term ones I'm going to keep regardless of whether I seed them or not. There's some messing around to point to where I've saved them and getting the file names to match, so I don't find it worth it for most stuff, but I collect a lot of BL series where it's worthwhile to do so. They don't seed often individually, but I've got a LOT, so there's always a slow top-up trickle. "Short term" are what I mainly seed from.
I have a finite amount of space dedicated to short term seeding. When that space is getting full, I can easily sort the list to see what's is still seeding and what is no longer worth keeping. I can then simply delete those torrents, and associated files, to create room for more recent stuff to seed.
Freeleech is a good choice because what you download doesn't count against your ratio, whereas regular stuff does. Because of this, you don't even need to particularly want what you're downloading. You just grab it, use it to seed while it's wanted by others, then you can delete it. You can grab a 100gb torrent, and even if you only upload 10gb back, that full 10gb gets added to your ratio, without any cost of getting it.
Whether Freeleech or normal, though, I find the important thing is getting in early to maximise the chance of others then also wanting to grab it. To best apply this to Freeleech, sort the list by "Freeleech most recent", This puts the torrents that have most recently been added to Freeleech at the top. Sorting by when the torrent was first added, or when Freeleech will end doesn't do this.
Another good way to get upload traffic is to create a new torrent yourself, if you have anything that isn't on here already. There's obviously no download cost and you'll get at least 100% of the torrent size in upload credit. I mention that percentage because it's important to understand that if twenty people download it, that doesn't mean you'll get twenty times its size. Hopefully you will get considerably more than 100% though. Plus, it has other benefits, like increasing the number of torrents you can download each day.
By "the actual media", do you mean the video and image files contained within each torrent? Those are what count for downloading / uploading when calculating the ratio. I'm not sure if the actual .torrent file even counts against your download number. Whether or not they do, that's largely irrelevant. They're (relatively) tiny - usually no more than 50-60kb. My largest one was 1mb, which was for a torrent containing about 760gb worth of files.
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I should have added somewhere, if you do decide to get a paid VPN subscription that supports port forwarding, this will put you miles ahead of many (most?) other members here, and will I'm sure help your seeding tremendously.
There has to be at least one member of a swarm (the term for all the seeders and leechers within a torrent) for it to work properly. If you're that one person, or one of them, you'll likely be one of the first to link up with others wanting what you've got.
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So if I download a 4 GB torrent, the 4 GB would be added to my DL, not the torrent file thingie?
Speaking of seeding, do you need to have the files get downloaded by someone to get that added to your ratio, or do you just need to be seeding it and then it'll passively add to your ratio? That's my main concern- Whether I have to constantly be swapping to new Torrents to earn points once no one is downloading from the old Torrent.
As for the VPN, is this why downloads have been REALLY slow when using a VPN?
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Also, what's the "Super Seeding Mode" in Qbittorrent (I'm assuming other torrenting clients also have that) supposed to do?
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I'm not absolutely sure the torrent file itself (i.e the file called "filename.torrent") isn't included, but even if it is, it's tiny - maybe 40kb, which is 0.0001% of a 4gb file. I think. It's been a long day. I may have added an extra 0. Or left one out.
It's the totla size of the files within that torrent that are counted. In the above screenshot, it's the column "Size".
Seeding and seeding availability are two different things. You get upload credit (1 to 1) for the volume you actually upload. Obviously, you have to have them available - i.e. in qBittorrent and shown as "Seeding" for someone to download them. You bonus points for seeding availabilty, even if no-one actually leeches from you. This is relatively small, and there's a cap on the number of torrents you get it for, but over a long time it adds up. You can exchange these bonus points for upload credit and other stuff, or you can give some to people who have uploaded a torrent as a "Thank you". Click on your bonus points number in the top bar to see a list of what you can do with them.
"Constantly" swapping torrents is relative. I've currently got about 2.8TB of files in my short term seeding space. I constantly add to it. Pretty much everything I download goes in there, unless I know for a fact I'll be keeping it long term (e.g BL shows) in which case I store it elsewhere, tag it as LT seeding, and leave it there "forever" in case someone wants it.
I go through my ST seeds now and then and delete stuff that hasn't seeded for a month. You need to be sure when you delete it that you delete the files as well as the torrent, i.e. ensure you tick "Also permanently delete..." (1), otherwise th files themselves stay where you've saved them, taking up space.
If by "is this why" you're referring to port forwarding on a VPN then no, it doesn't affect speed. (though I'm sure someone will point out there are instances when it does - see @MrMazda's comment for an example). That simply affects whether you can or cannot download, full stop. You can have people available to seed, and people wanting to leech, but if there's no "broker" - for want of a better way of putting it - it just won't happen until / unless someone who does have port forwarding (a "broker") joins the swarm.
Generally, a VPN doesn't significantly slow downloads. I do seem to have recently noticed a significant drop myself in both download speed and the amount I'm uploading. My download speed is usually 8mb/s but recently it's more like 5 mb/s on a good day. And the amount I'm uploading has dropped a lot too. I'm unaware of any changes I've made in my own set-up, so it may be related to some of the recent site improvements and I need to adjust my settings. But I've not investigated so this may just be my imagination.
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Also, what's the "Super Seeding Mode" in Qbittorrent (I'm assuming other torrenting clients also have that) supposed to do?
I have absolutely no idea on that one. I've never felt drawn to investigate!
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@Kevin4fm
Aha, interesting!
So to put it simply, you can get points from Seeding (people downloading what you seeded) AND being available for Seeding/Seeding Availability (when the status in the torrent client says "Seeding") so even though you can get points from Seeding Availability, Seeding gets you bonus points?What about the ratio thingie? Does it increase the UL from Seeding, Seeding Availability, or both? Gotta get my ratio up since I downloaded a big one today.
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You don't get points for seeding. You get points for a torrent being AVAILABLE to seed. So if it's listed as "Seeding" in qB, you get points regardless of whether someone is downloading it or not. There are also other ways of getting bonus points, listed in the Rules here. You get no upload credit for seeding availability, except when you have earned enough points to exchange them for this.
You get no bonus points for the amount of data you actually seed (upload). That is added to the total shown in your member info bar at the top (and in your profile).
Your ratio is the total amount you have uploaded divided by the total downloaded.
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I think I understand the points thing now. Thanks for the help!
As for the ratio, I'm aaaaaaalmost there.
Since ratio = Uploaded/Download, is the only way to improve my ratio to Seed for someone, not Seeding Availability?
To put it simply:
Seeding Availability = Points
Seeding = Upload Score (Let's call it that) -
So what does this mean in summary? that Port Forwarding is really good and shouldn't be underestimated?
Yes... Especially with a tracker like ours.
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Seeding Availability = Points
Seeding = Upload Score (Let's call it that)Yup, that's it in a nutshell. You can exchange points for upload credit when you have enough, but the most you can earn per day that way in 40. You can exchange 600 points for 10gb upload credit. So you'd have to be seeding the maximum number of torrents for 15 days to be able to earn enough for it. 10gb is significant when you're new, but the more you upload and download, the less significant it is. I've currently uploaded about 32tb, so an additional 10gb wouldn't have any noticeable effect on my ratio.
The main way to maintain / improve your ratio is, yes, seeding. You can also buy upload credit. Oops. I mean, you can "donate", and as a thank you for doing so, you're given upload credit.
The easiest way to upload is to seed other people's torrents but, as mentioned before, if you have stuff that's not already here you can also upload that as a torrent yourself. The first time you do so, you're entered into a (monthly?) draw, and have a chance of winning a 600 point First Timer bonus.
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