Merge/Combine a torrent (same hash) DL'd to two computers

I have two computers - a home computer and a laptop.

I started DLing a torrent to the home computer, and it ran for several days - it's up to ~35% for this 20GB torrent.

I went to a hospital and started DLing the same (identical; same infohash) torrent to my laptop while stuck there, and they have a super-fast public network that got me 25% in one day.

Is it possible to somehow merge/combine the two downloads into one, filling in the gaps where I have already downloaded? Can I get the two µTorrent clients to talk to each other over my home network?

I'm no networking guru (obviously) so if this is possible please dumb it down a little for me. :-)

Thanks,

Scott98390

My suggestion would be that you copy different files from each of them into one folder (you cannot merge files with same name, but you can copy the biggest file which has same name). Then you make sure your torrents download folder is this new folder you copied the files to, and do a Force re-check on the torrent. It's worth a try, but don't kill me if it doesnt work

Actually halvorsen, that's not a good way.

The better way, that does not interfere with the existing pieces, is to add the one machine as a peer from the other.

Pauseless integration. Just uncap your upload for the transfer.

@scott98390: That'd require µTorrent to scan the files over and over for any changes made by the other computer. Not optimal at all. DWK's suggestion is probably as good as it'll get.

DWK: that sounds like exactly what I'm trying to do. How exactly do I add my laptop as a peer to my PC?

My assumption is to use IPconfig to determine my laptop's IP address, then add that IP as a peer to the peerlist on the pc. Am I close?

How can I ensure the PC will use the laptop as it's primary DL resource (or is that automatic)?

My assumption is to use IPconfig to determine my laptop's IP address, then add that IP as a peer to the peerlist on the pc. Am I close?

You've basically nailed it. You need the laptop's listen port as well.

How can I ensure the PC will use the laptop as it's primary DL resource (or is that automatic)?

If they connect, then all you need to do is uncap your laptop's upload.

I tried to add my laptop to the PC's peerlist (ip 192.168.0.120) but nothing showed up in the peerlist - in fact, nothing happened at all. What might I be doing wrong? Is the listen port the part after the colon? (ie 192.168.0.120:XXXXXX) ? I currently have the two computers set to use the same port on my router - must they be different for this to work, or is the fact that the IP's are different good enough?

Addendum: I have added my laptop as a peer to the PC, but it doesn't show up as a peer in the peerlist - however, when I right-click in the peerlist window & select "copy peerlist" I get A LOT more peers than show up on the list - including my laptop IP that I added. Despite showing up in the copied peerlist, my PC doesn't appear to be DLing from the laptop according to the logfile.

Halp!

You may need to set the 2 computers to use different ports (so just change one).

And then use the internet ip address rather than your LAN one.

Ironically, you'll probably need to port-forward both then.

I don't know how well that'll work though.

IP config won't tell me my IP address, will it? How do I determine that?

It will.

start - run - cmd /k ipconfig

It will.

start - run - cmd /k ipconfig

IPConfig returns the same IP I've been using so far... 192.168.0.102... and it still doesn't seem to be working.

Question: How can I clear the peerlist? They appear to be cached somewhere, as they're still there if I stop the DL and restart the program. Maybe if I start fresh on my peerlist I would be able to put my IP in there as the first one.

This is really frustrating as I can't think of any reason why this shouldn't work! I mean, this is exactly what this program is DESIGNED to do (and does admirably well, don't get me wrong) - share files between peers. I just can't figger out some key here that ... ah, heck. I dunno. I just thought ... this really should work.

The add peer function only adds a peer to the cache. If one side or the other is already connected to its max number of peers, it won't connect automatically.

How can I clear the peerlist?

Right-click the torrent entry -> Advanced -> clear peerlist

DWK, thou dost verily ROCK! <evil laugh>BWAAAAhhhaaahhaahhaaa</evil laugh>

by clearing the peerlist I was able to connect and start the download/transfer/merge whatever. It's working beautifully... but it's behaving in a curious manner maybe someone could clear up:

My transfer rates on the laptop to the PC peer read an UL speed of ~1.3MB/s and a DL speed of ~450kB/s. That's all well and good, but since I'd primarily like to make this a "one way" transfer, I thought I'd put in a max DL speed of 1kB/s on the laptop, so the data would flow faster to the PC... sounds logical, right? I thought so, but...

When I put a max DL speed of 1kB/s on the torrent it dramatically slowed the UL rate as well!

Another thing... when I "clear peerlist" it doesn't really clear... copying the peerlist still gives me a good 30+ peers. why would that be? I have DHT and peer exchange disabled for the torrent; I even removed the trackers from the list, but it still keeps adding peers when I re-start the DL/UL again.

Don't do it that way...as you found out it doesn't work too good.

Instead set one up as a dedicated seeder using Scheduler -- set up the current times to SEED ONLY using SHIFT+click. Then it will not try to download any more of the file/s and only share what it already has.

On top of your network's maximum sustainable speed, µTorrent seems to have a maximum sustainable speed PER peer. And I've heard it may be as low as 1.5 MB/sec. ...though that was only with v1.5 and older? (someone who knows respond on this please!)

Why does the peer slowly move down the list and disappear? I have to set it up again even though they haven't finished sharing the file.

I'm had this problem so I made a solution:

http://code.google.com/p/mergetorrent/

Good luck.