by wolfden » Wed Aug 23, 2006 11:32
The survival of a torrent depends on the people.
I click on a torrent link and my bittorrent program Azureus kicks in and starts downloading. As I download others can download from me the parts that I have downloaded, this mode is called leeching. Once it completes the download, it drops down to the completed panel and than turns into a seed. Leaving Azureus run 24/7 allows others to be able to download the complete torrent from me.
The more seeds the more availability and bandwidth is available for others to download the file. A torrent with 100 seeds will download much faster than a torrent with 2 seeds. No seeders = no file, so it's up to the people to keep a file alive.
Trackers can go up and down, but generally once your connected to fellow peers(people your leeching from) you can still download regardless, but you need the initial download to start.
I just did the 64bit one, I don't know the stats of the 32bit one. I am hearing people are stuck with lengthy downloads. I notice the seeds on the 64 bit range from 11 to 30, which isn't a lot. All I can say is keep trying cause it is definately worth it.