Hi! Ktorrent uses my harddrives too much. Even at the highest memory setting, it uploads as many as 19 files at the same time and keeps on accessing my harddrives every second. I would like to be able to set any size of files cache I want, like 20 MB for example (or even more), to prevent ktorrent from making too much noise with my harddrives and causing them a premature death, and slowing my personal usage of my harddrives.
Amule gives users more freedom (kbytes per slot setting, cache setting - though not big enough).
I would like a global upload slots setting (right now it is a per torrent setting - which is not clearly indicated by the way), to limit the number of upload slots to 1, 2, 3 or even 10 at the same time if those uploads do not spend their time accessing my harddrives but rather access a RAM cache.
As a result, I shut down ktorrent (and use only amule, where I upload a lot: 120 kbytes/s) when I do not need to download a file, and I upload only that file when I use it. If you give us more freedom I will upload more on the torrent network.
Thank you for your attention.

The problem with caching is the random order of bittorrent downloads.

You can cache all you want, if you have no idea what is going to be asked, caching stuff in RAM is not very usefull, the chance is pretty small that you actually get a request for something which is cached.

In amule there is this setting to upload a chunk of 10 MB to every client that reaches the top of my queue. This way it is easy to cache those big chunks in RAM and avoid too many accesses to the harddrives. Is there a way in ktorrent to upload big chunks, or the bittorrent protocol only allows uploads of tiny chunks?

No, in BitTorrent the leecher is the one to request pieces of i think it was 64 kbit per piece in non-specific order. There is no way to cache that, only the download can be cached which is currently already done.

Thank you for your answers!
Do you think the protocol should be changed to reduce disk usage, or am I too worried about my harddrives?

IMHO you are too worried yes, and besides, the protocol depends on it to work well.

I remember reading in those few hard disk failure reports that emerged lately that actually there is no (big) correlation between (heavy) HD usage and failure rate.

Alright, Ktorrent is uploading more than a hundred files on my PC, 14 at the same time right now: my harddrives will not get much sleep tonight! Their temps are low, between 32 and 35°C, which is the most important factor contributing to their longevity if I remember correctly.