Discrepancy between server bandwidth use and uTorrent's stated speed

[Tori]

I didn't see any discussion of this on the forum.

I am new at this and it has been a steep learning curve. I like all the information that uTorrent provides in it's layout; now I just have to learn what it all means. I do have a headscratcher though which I am sure is only so because I am new to this. My download speed and upload speed fluctuate understandably depending on the day and bandwidth use. I can handle that and I have seen a download speed at a high of 600 kB/sec (rare) to a low of 7 kB/sec. Most of the time the download is around 50 - 150 kB/sec and upload can be 2-60kB/sec. However on a day when the download seemed particularly slow, like 20-30kB/sec, I phoned my server to ask if the day happened to be a particularly high traffic day. The technician checked my line and was somewhat amazed at my usage. In real time, as I was showing 50 kB/sec download he was registering a fluctuating usage of 800 - 1000kB/sec and the upload speed was similarly high compared to what uTorrent's stated speed was. I wondered if there was something else at work unbeknownst to me on my computer so I asked him to check the line usage after I exited uTorrent. Sure enough, after I exited, the service fell right off immediately to practically nothing. Herein lies the question, why am I registering such a high volume use with my server when I am only getting a small amount up and down at my end? Even if firewalls are blocking something or there is some 'choking' going on surely the server can't register any more usage than what I am actually downloading and uploading? Am I not reading something correctly or is there some invisible use of my bandwidth by uTorrent?

Thanks for the time and the patience.

[mattinahat]

I suspect it may be overheads. Lower the maximum number of connections per torrent and the global number of connected peers. If you have these set too high then µTorrent will try to connect to the maximum number of allowed peers. This creates HUGE overhead which is what you are experiencing.

[Tori]

Thanks Mattinhat. I checked my defaults; they were 375 for global connections and 100 for max peers per torrent. I lowered them to 100 and 20 respectively but I notice that I would rarely have 20/torrent anyway. I don't know what would be a reasonable number and I'm still puzzled. If I upload at 5.0kB/sec to 10 peers does this mean that my server is dipatching an equal amount to each of the ten peers on my bandwidth?

[Switeck]

"If I upload at 5.0kB/sec to 10 peers does this mean that my server is dipatching an equal amount to each of the ten peers on my bandwidth?"

No, uTorrent limits upload slots such that it's uploading at least ~2 KB/sec per upload slot. It is much faster for all if a few peers complete pieces instead of many peers getting only parts of pieces.

For many torrents, piece size can be 256 KB, 512 KB, 1 MB, 2 MB, or even 4 MB. Uploading at very low speeds can take incredibly long for a peer to finish 1 piece as you may not be uploading to it 100% of the time.