How do torrent files work?

On this forum and a few others I have been starting to use torrents to get some various things. I used to just download and forget but I noticed that they were still in the list, so I deleted them. When I downloaded the last few things from the Fakku forums I noticed that the stuff I just downloaded said that it was seeding it, so I didn't delete the torrent. The only problem is that my computer is getting full so I have been deleting the .zip and .rar files when I have unzipped them. Then I noticed that the torrents had errors by them.

This all leads to the fact that I don't really know how this stuff all works and I want to know a little bit about how it does.

This thread might be of some help to you.

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking, if you can be a bit more specific I might be of some help.

I have Bittorrent and I have successfully downloaded several things. Basically, I want to know is:
1)How does a torrent work? (Basically the download/seeding process)
2)How do I seed a torrent that I have downloaded?
3)Do I need to keep the file that the torrent gave me?

Torrents are a Person to Person type of download. Meaning as long as someone is seeding, you can still download it. Once you download and open a .torrent file in bittorrent, it will start downloading. Once it's completely downloaded, it will begin to seed.

Torrents automatically seed as long as you keep the original files in the folder the torrent downloaded them to.

So if I download a .rar file, it will seed as long as I don't delete the .rar; but if I download a .zip file I will need to copy it and expand the copy.

Does that sound right?

I don't believe that is quite right.

All files act the same, whether it is a .rar, a .zip, or a .7z. You will seed a .rar file exacltly like you will seed a .zip file. Just download it, and make sure it remains unaltered, and that will cause you to seed after the download.

Altering, or moving the file or directory will cause an error to be seen in the torrent application, because it will not be able to find the file you are seeding.

You are always uploading, despite whether you have completely downloaded it or not. Do not move or edit the file, or it will fail on verification.

Access the zip files from a program like WinRAR or 7zip. They don't remove the files from the .zip, instead they extract (copy) them.

So as long as the file is in place and unaltered it will seed?

Yes.
And since torrents rely on people seeding after download, it is always nice to do so for a while after the download is finished, and at the very least let the torrent seed until you have uploaded as much as you have downloaded (often written as share ratio, which should be >1 before stopping seeding)

So if a torrent file (the torrent launcher, not what you download) doesn't take up much room, I may as well just leave it right?

Or can I actually delete it from the folder if the torrent program is open?

Either way, I will probably just start leaving them until I forget what they are.

(I have uploaded 8.81GB compared to the 701MB download for RE: Degeneration, so that would be a pretty nice ratio, right?)

depending on the program the actual .torrent file can often be deleted after the bittorrent program has loaded it (don't know of a program where you can't), But you obviously have to keep the downloaded contents to be able to share/seed it.
And that indeed is a nice ratio.

So I believe you now understand what you need regarding torrents :)

i know i cant explain that properly... but i'll do simple mode:


BUCKET and WATER (from our 'dumb' comp. teach.... i lulz'd at this)
imagine the file as a bucket of water from several people who have it. since you cant just directly get that bucket of water to your side, you need to let the water trickle down to your own bucket. any torrent software is like a faucet that does exactly that.... (sorry, i forgot the lines)

Bittorrent works by chopping up the data into tiny pieces. Unlike regular file transfers the data is not sent in an ordered sequence - that is sending the first piece of the file, then the second, then the third, then... etc. Instead the chunks are sent out in whatever order is in demand.

Like other P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing systems no data is stored on a central server. Instead only "contact information", storing the IP of the "content sharers" is uploaded to a server called a "bit-torrent tracker".

Afterwards this data can be downloaded by a user in the form of a bit-torrent file. When a client - in BT called a leecher - starts to download data he's given a random piece. When the piece is downloaded he also - immediately - becomes a new source of that piece.

This achieves something remarkable. Normally in server-client system, the more clients you have the slower the download will go. Normal P2P systems could mitigate it by "balancing the load" between all available sources of the file.

Bittorrent goes even further - the very moment you start downloading you also become a source. So the more people use a torrent the faster it will eventually become.



In this animation, the coloured bars beneath all of the 7 clients in the upper region above represent individual pieces of the file. After the initial pieces transfer from the seed (large system at the bottom), the pieces are individually transferred from client to client. The original seeder only needs to send out one copy of the file for all the clients to receive a copy.

Wikipedia entry:BitTorrent (protocol)

Thanks guys, this was helpful and informative.