What should my cache settings be?

Hi

I use utorrent on my server and I am not sure what to put in the top box "override automatic size and specify manually. I get disk overload quite a bit when I am approaching 17/18 MBs sometimes I am well over that speed depending on if I am hitting other friends on my network etc and it will get even worse the higher I go

Currently here is are my settings once we determine what I should do in my utorrent cache settings can someone also tell me what I should look at in Windows settings to make sure I am better suited to prevent this problem.. ( I can give any screenshot of windows or whatever else is needed for the help)

SATA II 250g HDD

1 Gig Ram

1 Gbit connection

I hope we can sort this out I am not sure if its Windows - Utorrent or something else... I appreciate any help

Your settings are good for Disk Cache.

What version of µTorrent you running?

(You tried the latest v1.7 beta?)

1.6.1 build 490 is what I have now. Should I try the beta? Never really thought of updating, I never have until forced to on a few sites I use. Thanks alot for helping. I will leave the settings alone then for now since you know what you are talking about....

Yes, DO try the new v1.7 beta.

Put it into a different folder and try it separately so it doesn't hurt your old settings.

Back up your .dat files if you want to be certain.

Back up your .dat files and don't forget to put your settings.dat in the same folder as the 1.7 beta before you run it

Ok I will try it later today - I hope it sort itself out. For now I limit the speeds when it gets going to fast and I see it coming and that settles it a bit but its a pain to babysit it. I appreciate the help.

Lastly - I have been watching it tick by "to cache" 50/s, 33/s etc. Is it better to have it cache more often or faster or slower between caches?

While torrenting just now in taskmanager utorrent was pegged @ 223,523k that doesnt seem right............

The high memory usage comes from the cache -- 200MB cache translates to approximately 200MB memory usage if the cache is filled. It's not really important how fast µTorrent is writing to cache, provided it's sufficiently large -- enough to hold data until the next write to disk (whenever that may be).

holy cow! 17/18 MB/s

Mind posting a screenshot of that?

Ok I see. Should I mess with that setting (200) higher or lower or just leave it alone.

tjobo - sure if I get some torrents today I will get a screenshot

Thanks again guys

... provided it's sufficiently large -- enough to hold data until the next write to disk (whenever that may be).

... but not so large that it runs out of RAM and spills over into swap space.

-- Smoovious

Afaik there is a bug with the cache that causes a disk overload as soon as the cache is filled. There is a trick to prevent this problem. See this post (since your cache is 'only' 200 MB I suggest doing it somewhere around 100MB downloaded) and try it, tell us if it helps. Read that whole topic for more info on this problem.

How can you tell utorrent how often to start emptying the cache to the hard drive? I put my cache size to 700mb since I have seen that number mentioned in numerous places on the site. My settings are the exact same as the post up top (except mine is at 700). I do see the cache under the speed tab on utorrent drop every now and then but I am afraid if I leave it on overnight it will still build up to that 700 and start with the overloading again. Will utorrent keep emptying the cache build up enough so it never reaches that 700??

I have 4 RAID5 sata 3.0 drives

6mb internet service

If you need those numbers at all.

Thanks for all the help with this problem so far.

As far as I understand once you did the little trick I linked you don't have to worry about overloading for the rest of the time µtorrent stays running (If you restart µtorrent you have to do the trick again).