file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include r ...

, super-seeding (aka 'Initial Seeding') is an

algorithm In mathematics and computer science, an algorithm () is a finite sequence of rigorous instructions, typically used to solve a class of specific Computational problem, problems or to perform a computation. Algorithms are used as specificat ...

developed by John Hoffman for the BitTorrent communications protocol that helps downloaders become uploaders more quickly, but it introduces the danger of total seeding failure if there is only one downloader. The algorithm applies when there is only one

seed A seed is an embryonic plant enclosed in a protective outer covering, along with a food reserve. The formation of the seed is a part of the process of reproduction in seed plants, the spermatophytes, including the gymnosperm and angiospe ...

in the

swarm Swarm behaviour, or swarming, is a collective behaviour exhibited by entities, particularly animals, of similar size which aggregate together, perhaps milling about the same spot or perhaps moving ''en masse'' or migrating in some direction. ...

. By permitting each downloader to

download In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote s ...

only specific parts of the files listed in a

torrent Torrent or torrents may refer to: * A fast flowing stream Animals * Torrent duck, a species of the family Anatidae * Torrent fish * Torrent frog, various unrelated frogs * Torrent robin, a bird species * Torrent salamander, a family of sala ...

, it allows peers to start

seeding The term seeding and related terms such as seeded are used in several different contexts: *Sowing, planting seeds in a place or on an object *Cloud seeding, manipulating cloud formations *Seeding (computing), a concept in computing and peer-to-pee ...

more quickly. Peers attached to a seed with super-seeding enabled therefore distribute pieces of the torrent file much more readily before they have completed the download themselves. In 2003, BitTornado became the first

BitTorrent client The following is a general comparison of BitTorrent clients, which are computer programs designed for peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. The BitTorrent protocol coordinates segmented file transfer among peers connected i ...

to implement the algorithm.

Effects

Testing by one group found that super seeding can help save an upload ratio of around 20%. It works best when the upload speed of the seed is greater than that of individual peers. Super seeding transfers stall when there is only one downloading client. The seeders will not send more data until a second client receives the data. To avoid this,

rTorrent rTorrent is a text-based BitTorrent client written in C++, based on the ncurses and libTorrent (not to be confused with libtorrent) libraries for Unix, whose author's goal is "a focus on high performance and good code". Technical detail ...

continues to offer more pieces to the peers without waiting for confirmation, until it is uploading at its configured capacity.RTorrentInitialSeeding – The libTorrent and rTorrent Project
Libtorrent.rakshasa.no. Retrieved on 2011-12-03. This improves the upload speed until enough peers have joined the swarm, at the cost of not being able to detect cheating peers, who engage in such anti-social actions as downloading only from seeds, downloading from the fastest peers, or advertising false pieces.

Supporting clients

References

External links

Description of original super-seed algorithm in BitTornado

Report by Robb Toploski
(''Issue #4 & 5 are regarding Super Seeding'') {{DEFAULTSORT:Super-seeding BitTorrent de:BitTorrent#Superseeding