Disk overload 100%, corked jobs

[Sink41]

I'm using using a very slow netbook with a Atom N270 1.6Ghz atom chip, 2GB of ram, windows xp, downloading to an external 2TB HD over usb 2.0. Far from an ideal system, but that said I don't remember having any issues with older versions. Newer versions often cause issues.

For example in this case I resume a torrent i was downloading. At the start its fine, but cache size slowly creeps up. There would be corked jobs, but the counter would quickly reset to 0. Max i saw was 27 corked jobs for half a second before it quickly reset to 0, usually it would only jump to 4 or so. Near the end of the graph i had an uptick in download speed and the cache couldn't handle it. It's a bit annoying that I have tested the drive, and it can sustain 30mb/s which while much slower than an internal drive is much higher than the 6.2-6.4mb/s i was downloading. At one point at around 50mb/120mb or so cache size, corked jobs jump up, continues increasing and this time don't reset to 0. nothing is written to the drive, and the cache starts increasing. At 100/120mb i pause the torrent, but despite nothing being downloaded the cache doesn't clear and corked jobs is slowly increasing. The only way to fix this is end the utorrent process. I am using defualt cache settings, everything ticked except override automatic cache size and increase cache size when trashing. I have plenty of spare RAM, but i like i said the cache/disk writing part of the program imploded before max cache was reached. Once this happens, if you continue downloading, cache increases to 100% of whatever size it is set, and nothing is written to the HD and then nothing more is downloaded.

I am sure there have been other threads about this, just thought i would share my system and experience. I often also have 100% disk overload when starting a torrent downloaded, even with pre allocate all files selected.

[DreadWingKnight]

Using what specific version of uTorrent?

[Sink41]

3.3.2 (build 30180)

[ciaobaby]

2TB HD over usb 2.0

Is the reason.

[octopusnuts]

To rule out the possibility that it is the USB 2.0 drive which causes this (which someone else seems to know for a fact), go back to an older version of uTorrent (3.2.3 build 28705). If the problem goes away it's not the drive, but something else. I would suggest sticking to the older version if it works.

[rafi]

2TB HD over usb 2.0

Is the reason.

To rule out the possibility that it is the USB 2.0 drive which causes this (which someone else seems to know for a fact)' date=' go back to an older version of uTorrent (3.2.3 build 28705). If the problem goes away it's not the drive, [b']but something else.

Possibly so. The new file IO sub system of >3.3.x might as well need some adjusting of proper identification of a *real* disk overload condition!

Below is the disk's "%Idle time" and "Write queue length" (max 1, normalized to 100), showing no overload at all (w/o using any cache in this test) . As reference - we can see 2.2.1 and a real disk load generated by CrystalDiskMark. So the conclusion is clear enough.

No need to blame everything on the users' PC system's limitations. Using the cache only hides this issue, by making the overload manifest only at a higher speed/"threshold". Proper relevant settings are even more important only because of the cache is now a must-have to help avoid this "phantom" overhead at higher speeds especially with unaligned multi-files torrents (and that results with unnecessary speed throttling).

CrystalDiskMark:

uT 2.2.1:

uT 3.3.2:

[octopusnuts]

No need to blame everything on the users' PC system's limitations.

Amen, brother.

Unfortunately I have nothing else to add towards solving this problem for anyone, besides downgrading.