does ratio matter?

[phenom]

i was wondering if your upload/download ratio affects your download speed, or has any other detrimental effects to downloading, connecting to peers, etc. i just had a look at my stats and found that i've uploaded 50 gb, and downloaded 65 gb. i always like to get my torrents up to a 1:1 ratio or higher before deleting them, but as my upload speed is severely limited (thank you, ukonline!) it often takes me days if not weeks to achieve this. any info would be appreciated.

[Switeck]

Ratio tends to matter ONLY for the current torrent you're downloading/uploading.

Torrents have no memory of what you do/did on other torrents.

However if you upload very little on a torrent that is short on seeds (or peers with >80% of the torrent), then your download speed can suffer badly.

A general rule of thumb is your upload speed needs to be at least 1 KiloBYTE/sec per upload slot at absolute minimum. So if you have 3 torrents with 3 upload slots each, you need an upload speed minimum of 9 KiloBYTES/sec.

Better results should be gotten if your upload speed is 3-10 KiloBYTES/sec per upload slot. Above 10 KiloBYTES/sec, quite few peers can return the favor!

[phenom]

cheers, dude.

[dAbReAkA]

low ratio can give u Wait Time on some private trackers as a detrimental effect

there's no way for the tracker to limit your speed except for probably supplying u with less peers if your ratio is low (i've never seen that though but i had the idea to implement it on e certain tracker)

note that the number of peers may not necessarily influence your speed.. it all depends on their upload speed, connectivity, who initiated the connection (encryption enabled on his end?) and stuff like that..

[Lord Alderaan]

1:1 (aka 1.0) is considered a fair ratio. This goes for every single torrent. Remember that pretty much all consumer internet connections have a much higher download than upload speed. Otherwise we wouldn't even have to point this ratio-1.0-is-fair thing out to people

Some (closed/private/signup) trackers keep track of your weighted average ratio and grant bonuses or impose limits (or even kick/ban you from their tracker) depending on it. On those trackers it often is acceptable to stop seeding a torrent before it has a ratio of 1.0 as long as you don't harm the torrent that way (make sure there are enough seeds)[i/] and keep up a decent overall ratio on the tracker.