Limiting upload/download rates (Advice for a newbie)

[theary]

Hi,

I'm an old school Mac user new to bitTorrents and have just installed and read through all the FAQ's, configuration documents and forum posts etc for setting things up and tips and such.

I've done port forwarding, gotten the green light, and am now trying to download a file. Everything seems to be working okay (thank goodness because I'm not the most tech savvy of computer users) and just had a general question regarding the "Preferences" options for utorrent Mac.... In the "Bandwidth" tab in "Preferences" there are options to limit download rates and upload rates... and one to "Limit upload rate automatically" ... Everything started up unchecked and I'm just wondering if there are any advantages to checking any of these boxes and choosing any of the options.

I'm happy to leave well enough alone. But just curious about what these options are for. Also, in searching the forums, I came across these threads:

-- http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=53337

-- http://forum.utorrent.com/viewtopic.php?id=51849

The first thread recommends setting the limits to 2/3 of the speed test, but not an explanation as to why one might *want* to do that at all. The second thread suggests limiting the upload speed to reduce 'flooding your bandwidth'

... Also the default setting for the "seed ratio" is defaulted at 1.5. I've read on other threads it should be set to 1... If there is a reason why I should change this, I'm happy to oblige.

Otherwise, the program is running great for me with the original default options. Of course, I've only attempted to download the 1 test file. And I'm a slight "tech dunce"... so.

Thanks in advance for any input/advice/enlightenment any of you may have to offer on this matter.

[NoOneButMe]

Seed ratio is broken right now. The higher it is, the more you'll seed though, once the limit works again.