i have my max upload set at 20k. i'm seeding about 20 torrents. system manager says i'm using about 40k. i wonder if it's the overhead of seeding too many leaches at once. such as, ktorrent is giving ~ 10 peers data. wouldn't it conserve bandwidth to give 3 or four peers data instead? is there a way to do this with ktorrent?

what does the 'number of upload slots' do in preferences? when i change this value it has no visible effect.

thanks.

As far as the second part of your question is concerned,in a very simple way,

the 'number of upload slots is the number of peers u upload data to.This number is per torrent.Assuming u have 20k UL speed.So if u have 1 active torrent with number of upload slots=2 then nomatter how many people leech this torrent u will only upload to 2 of them with 10k UL speed to each(lets say).SAme if u have2 active torrents no matter how many many people leech u will upload data to 4 of tem(2 at each torrent) with 2.5kb/s to each peer(it wouldnt really be 2.5kb/s this number will vary in practise.Just an example).
If u set he 'number of upload slots to 4 then u will upload data to 4 peers for each active torrent.
WIth a 20k UL speed it would be wise to set this number to 2-4 not more.SO that peers will be interested for leeching data from u.

Hope i helped

EDIT: as far as the first question is concerned i was looking for some time now to find a post ive read at http://www.adslgr.com.I cannot recall what was exactly written at that post.THe main idea is that a torrent client sends data even if u dont upload anything to any peers.The author of that post says that for a 100mb file he uploaded about 30mb but not to any peers.I guess this is where your extra uploading goes to.That should also be the reason we limit upload speed of torrents to 80%-85% of our actuall UL speed.Ill try to find that post....That's all i remember.Not an advanced answer though.....

delta9 wrote:As far as the second part of your question is concerned,in a very simple way,

the 'number of upload slots is the number of peers u upload data to.This number is per torrent.Assuming u have 20k UL speed.So if u have 1 active torrent with number of upload slots=2 then nomatter how many people leech this torrent u will only upload to 2 of them with 10k UL speed to each(lets say).SAme if u have2 active torrents no matter how many many people leech u will upload data to 4 of tem(2 at each torrent) with 2.5kb/s to each peer(it wouldnt really be 2.5kb/s this number will vary in practise.Just an example).
If u set he 'number of upload slots to 4 then u will upload data to 4 peers for each active torrent.
WIth a 20k UL speed it would be wise to set this number to 2-4 not more.SO that peers will be interested for leeching data from u.

Hope i helped :D

yeah that's what i guessed it would do, but wasn't really sure. thanks for your answer. unfortunately on my system it has no effect. i have it set to 3 but i have about 10 leeches. i guess i should find my log files and post more details. i assume this works on your system and my problem is local.

ktorrent 2.2.4 (using kde 3.5.8-19.fc8 fedora x86_64)

I think it should take some time before requests are filled and upload slots are limited.

time isn't the issue in this case. i've given it hours. the feature does not work on my computer. i looked through my logs and see lots of time outs trying to connect to other peers but nothing else stands out. gnome in my main environment if that matters. i've also reinstalled the appication but did not delete ./ktorrent metadata. i may try that next.

U may have 10,20 or 100 leechers but the onces u are uploading data to(limited by number of upload slots ) are the ones that have a green tick next to there names on the tab peers of the torrent if this is what u meant at your previous reply

ah, that's good information!

so 'number of upload slots' in preferences controls the number of green check marks in the peers upload slot column.

ok.

// later edit

restated, my current problem is, even though number of upload slots is limited to 3 and there's three green check marks in the peers upload column, i appear to be giving data to ~10 different people according to the up speed column.

shouldn't only 3 rows be active in the upload speed column and shouldn't they be the one's with the green check mark?

stoeptegel wrote:I think it should take some time before requests are filled and upload slots are limited.

i think i understand now. the limit on upload slots is working. there's a perceived delay in the other column.

i changed my number of upload slots to 2 and have noticed a significant saving in bandwidth while seeding many torrents.

i guess the case is closed. thanks for your help guys.