Let BitTorrent no longer "injure" hard disk when downloading

BitTorrent is a P2P sharing software similar to eDonkey2000GUI Client (commonly known as "Electricity"), referred to as BT, Chinese is called "bitstream". It is an excellent multi-point download tool, its new download concept - the faster the downloads, the faster it is accepted. With the popularity of the application, there is a problem that has gradually become the focus of debate: Will BitTorrent harm the hard disk? This article will briefly analyze this problem and give optimization methods.

As you know, BT is able to provide such a high download speed because it downloads files and provides download services for others. One view is that when a file has N users to download, the hard disk will be subject to 1 download and N-1 uploads (that is, the downloads you provide to others), if there are N × 10 or N × 100 individuals at the same time Download, the load on the hard disk will be greatly increased, and the chance of damage is greatly increased. Another view is that the hard disk read and write is normal operation, and the hard disk has a parameter called continuous time between failures (MTBF), which refers to the maximum time from the start of the hard disk to the failure of the hard disk. The MTBF of the general hard disk is at least 30,000 hours. Above, and the time that users use BT to download is definitely far less than this time, so using BT is not too harmful to the hard disk.

The author believes that compared with the general occasion, the use of BT will read and write the hard disk more frequently, to a certain extent, will accelerate the aging of the hard disk, but if we pay attention to the use of time and take some optimization Measures, this effect can be ignored.

1. Set a larger Cache value

BT multi-threaded download and upload, Windows default 512KB Cache is obviously not enough. If the memory is more than 256MB, setting the Cache to be larger should reduce the frequency of hard disk read and write. Generally set at 8MB ~ 16MB the best. I set it to 32MB and open 4 BT processes at the same time. The flashing of the hard disk indicator is still normal. The specific steps are as follows (using Windows XP as an example):

Enter "regedit" in "Start → Run", open "Registry Editor", and open

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\\SYSTEM" \\CurrentControlSet \\Control\\Session Manager\\Memory Management\\", look for "IoPageLock-Limit" (if not, create "IoPageLockLimr, type DWord"), change its value to the new Cache value, and restart it.

Note: You must enter a hexadecimal value, 32MB corresponds to 8000, and 16MB corresponds to 4000. It is strongly recommended to back up the registry first.

If it is a Windows NT system, run the "system drive letter \\WINNT" directory. Under "Regedit.exe", enter the "Registry Editor", find the string "MinlnitSize", change the key value from "4" to "20" (hexadecimal number, equivalent to decimal number 32)

2. Reduce the priority

BT takes up a lot of resources, which may have a certain impact on the performance of the system. If you are using Windows 2000/XP, you can use Task manager Low priority for all BT software, so even if it takes up resources, it will not have much impact on other applications. The specific method is to use the "Ctrl+Alt+Del" key combination to start "Windows Task Manager". In the "Process" tab, right-click on the BT software process and select "Low" or "Under Standard" in the "Set Priority" menu.