Allocating files?

[burglecutt]

What does it mean?
I use BitTornado and it has an option of "finish allocation" under details and/or preferences. Im not sure what that entails exactly but it would seem that it is a method of keeping all the d/l torrent files together, as I have found that some finished torrents have missing or scattered bytes after checking them with a defrag. If using allocation would help me when would I use it and are there any dangers? Thanks.

[Five]

you answered your own question very well

if you're downloading a few torrents at the same time without preallocating it can get very fraggy

I always use the pre-allocate (aka finish allocation) mode

[hopenhower]

I'm not so sure. I use BitTornado also. When d/l'ing a torrent with more than one file, you can go to details and right click on one of the files and click "download first". Then instead of getting all of the files in whichever order is most available (usually a small percentage of each at a time), it will finish downloading that file first. Once that file is 100%, it's symbol turns yellow and you still can't do anything with it. It's like it is locked. If you finish allocating it, the symbol turns green and you can play the file. As far as fragging goes, I think the whole point of torrents it that when you start it, it creates dummy files the same size as the actual download. Then it breaks it up into small pieces and replaces the dummy parts with the real parts as it goes. I asume the fragmentation is determined before the download even starts. If your worried about fragmenting, defrag before you start the torrent. If you plan on downloading all of the files in the torrent, there is no need to download one first and allocate it. It will allocate all of the files automatically when they are finished downloading. (Unless you want to sample one of the files and stop the torrent if you don't like it.) I don't think that it actually means allocating space on the hard drive for the file. I think that is done initially. Someone correct me if I'm wrong though.

[wharfrat73]

http://www.utorrent.com/faq.php#How_...the_torrent.3F

There is little use to pre-allocate except for making sure you have enough space when starting a torrent. It does NOT reduce fragmentation as compared to not using it, since µTorrent ALWAYS allocates the full file when writing to prevent fragmentation, regardless of if pre-allocate is on (unless you use compact storage or sparse files).

http://azureus.sourceforge.net/faq.php#13

Incremental File Creation: only stores the file size. Allocation occurs as the files are downloaded. Results in a much more fragmented file.

[Five]

now I'm getting confused

[wharfrat73]

Oh good. I thought it was just me.

Anybody know what this means to my poor, abused hard drive

[burglecutt]

Thanks for the insight! Particularly with d/l DVDs, im not sure if its because im torrenting two at a time, but some shows cannot play on my standalone and I cant play them with WinDVD (although I have been able to play them with VLC media player) Now I may be getting off topic but I feel that its a relative issue, that I may be losing some file information thus they will not burn proper. It could be something else. Now with one show for example (JGB 11.19.93) I couldnt burn it, so its been on my harddrive and I continued to seed it. After seeding it a day, "eureka" it worked.
Now Wharfrat are you suggesting I drop Tornado and try the uTorrent? Afterall, its a real bummer to leech a video only for it to be relativly useless to me. Plus, I dont know if its ethical for me to continue seeding it if I recieved possibly fragmented files.

[wharfrat73]

No I wasn't suggesting that you drop Bit Tornado. I haven't used it in so long, I have no idea what it's like. You can't "seed fragmented files". That's strictly an issue with you and your hard drive. I think it's possible for you to send more bad data, if you have a very fragmented drive, but that's fixable: defragment the drive once in a while

After reading the quotes I cited above about 100 times I think it's starting to make sense to me. Supposedly, pre allocation results in a less fragmented drive. This reference

Incremental File Creation: only stores the file size. Allocation occurs as the files are downloaded. Results in a much more fragmented file.

is saying that using "Incremental File Creation" results in more fragmentation. Pre allocation is like assigned seating; part A will go here, part B will go there, etc.

[burglecutt]

well i suppose its about time for a defrag anyway. i think the bit"tornado" may refer to the fact that its blowing bits and bytes all over my computer. thanks for the help.

[Five]

I agree with whatfrat, any burning/fragmenting issues are on your computer and won't affect anybody else leeching because bt hash checks everything it recieves.

the best way I can figure for testing fragmenting is to defrag, allocate a new torrent, then check your fragmentation analysis right after that (and maybe again after a few hours where you haven't written anything to your hd, like say letting it run overnight).