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quinto6
Premium Member
join:2013-10-15
Celina, OH

quinto6

Premium Member

Does a VPN really hinder internet speeds for torrents?

I use Viscosity as with BTGuard VPN setup through it. Now when I run a speedtest my speeds are approx. 5 Mbps down and 1.4 Mbps up. My internet without a VPN is about 22 Mbps down and 2.2 Mbps up. I use a VPN for torrenting. When I download though through the VPN, my speeds easily reach 2.2 MB/s (if I understand correctly, is about 22 Mbps?). So why when running a speedtest, I show slower speeds but when running utorrent, my downloads aren't slowed?

eibgrad
join:2010-03-15
united state

eibgrad

Member

I assume when you say 22Mbps w/ torrents, you’re speaking in the aggregate. Unlike torrents, speedtest is based upon the performance of ONE server, and which you *assume* can deliver the full capacity of your client. But that’s not necessarily the case. Perhaps the server is overloaded, or there are routing issues between you and it. OTOH, torrents DISTRIBUTE the effort over MANY connections. It’s a lot easier to maintain high throughput when you have a choice of many (presumably) lower throughput connections all working together (think ant colony). And if one gets too slow, you can drop the slacker and choose another. So torrents may actually be a better and more reliable measure of throughput than speedtest. With speedtest, you just have to hope you have a lightly loaded server (and which is why they offer other server choices).

Does that prove that’s the reason? No. But it’s certainly one possibility.
HELLFIRE
MVM
join:2009-11-25

HELLFIRE to quinto6

MVM

to quinto6
said by quinto6:

When I download though through the VPN, my speeds easily reach 2.2 MB/s (if I understand correctly, is about 22 Mbps?).

1 byte = 8bits, so
2.2Mbytes = 17.6Mbits

So is your internet package rated at 22/2.2Mbit, then?

I find the best way to test speeds is to limit the variables as much as possible, just from a rule
of thumb / best practices perspective.

My 00000010bits

Regards