part file Can I Use Utorrent Part File?

[Disenchanted_11]

Hi, I have a huge torrent with a size of 70GB (21 files). I don't want to download all of it at the same time because of data usage management. So I skipped others and downloaded files 1 and 2 first, it went fine. Then I downloaded files 3, 4, and 5, but to my surprise I consumed 25GB overnight, and some 19GB of those went to a partFile.dat. and files 3, 4, and 5 has not yet finished.

I searched for the logic of the part file, and I get to undestand it. After years of using utorrent, I only encountered this now so I don't have a clue.

Question is:
Will this "partFIle" be used later when I proceed to download the rest of the torrent? Meaning will those 19GB of partFile data be converted into actual files later, and I don't have to re-consume it again? Right now, I unskipped all the files, the part file is gone, all 21 files are now present in the download folder. Utorrent is not yet indicating the presence of additional 19GB completion in the Files tab, and Windows Explorer is only showing the "total size" of the files and not the "current actual size" so I have no way of determining if I now have that 19GB of data to good use, or if it was totally wasted.

Answers will determine the continuation of this torrent download. I can't download 70GB overnight, but I surely can't afford to waste partFile data every time I download 3 files. Thank you very much!

[PiusX]

You can't really breakup a torrent file unless you know where and how it was created. Your choices are to let it finish or find another torrent that has the files separated to rebuild it. Trying to do piece meal won't work here.

[notmebug]

In simple terms, BitTorrent transfers pieces and not files, and files are rarely are a perfect multiple of the piece size. The partfile's function is to store the parts of the piece data that overlap with the files you're not interested on. If you download 100% of the torrent as you apparently plan to, that data will be reused, and the partfile will disappear since it's no longer needed, so it's not "wasted" by any means.

This behavior can be turned off via the advanced setting diskio.use_partfile. If you do so, uTorrent will allocate the files you deselected and store the partial piece data in the segments where it's expected to be. I don't know if this change applies retroactively to existing torrents, but using the partfile is a better approach, so you have no reason to turn it off (only exception: moving/sharing partial seeding torrents to/with a non-uTorrent client, so that it can complete the hash check without redownloading anything).