Hard drive wear and tear vs number of transfers?

[dwdockins]

Query - Just looking for guidance...

I have always limited the number of Transmission active transfers to 3, sometimes 2 or even 1, on the grounds that too many more would cause my hard drive to chew itself to pieces, as the internal pivot mechanism would be constantly yanking around looking for pieces from numerous different files; overheat my processor; and hog so much bandwidth that my browser would go practically comatose.

To confirm this theory, today I temporarily increased the number of active transfers to 16. I immediately noticed the internal temperature of the Northbridge chip skyrocket and my temperature monitor program started giving me overheat warnings - a sure indication that I am abusing my precious iMac; plus I could both feel and hear a distinct hum from it. The upper left back of the machine became frighteningly 'warm'. My browser decided to give me the SBBOD as well, so I backed off to 'normal' and all seems much better now.

So... how is it that other users can apparently run dozens of transfers at once, 24/7, and suffer no long term consequences either to the health of their processor, hard drive mechanism or other bandwidth-consuming programs?

Color me confused.

Thanks, dwdockins
-btw, what is the relationship between - the queued maximum of transfers in the Preferences/Transfers/Management pane and - the maximum connections for new transfers in the Preferences/Peers pane?

[blacke4dawn]

Not sure about HDD or CPU usage but I guess it's more of "trusting" ones system, or just having good cooling in general. It's also very likely that those who are dedicated to seeding have some form of raid (or equivalent) so that the HDD load is spread over several HDD's. HDD's won't "chew" them self to pieces unless there is something else wrong with them or seriously abused, and torrents in general won't come to that level of "abuse".

With bandwidth that just a matter of limiting the total usage. I believe that the standard recommendation is to put it at 80-90% (the higher it is the more you can go towards 90%) of ones measured max on both up and down respectively.

As for the relationship between queue and connections is that queue limits the number of active torrents while connections limits the number of people who connects to you and you connect to. You have global connections which limits the total number shared by all active torrents, and you have a per torrent connection setting.

[dwdockins]

Thanks for the update. I don't use an external drive of any kind... maybe I should? (I have one, I just haven't hooked it up)

...connections limits the number of people who connects to you...

This one simply confuses me. When I change my normal number [3] in the Preferences/Peers pane, say to 4, I don't see any indication of peers increasing. What I do see is the number of ACTIVE TRANSFERS increasing. This parameter, in that it sets another transfer on seed, does not seem to be peer-oriented and appears to me to be mis-labeled, in that adds another actively seeding transfer... what it does with peers, despite the fact that the pane indicates the number is peer oriented (and your good opinion also), is invisible to me as far as I can see.

What am I missing here?

Thanks, dwdockins

[blacke4dawn]

Thanks for the update. I don't use an external drive of any kind... maybe I should? (I have one, I just haven't hooked it up)

Not sure where you got "external" from but that is not needed, and anyone serious will prefer internal drives since in most cases you will be able to get better speeds for them and in sometimes even hardware raid.

...connections limits the number of people who connects to you...

This one simply confuses me. When I change my normal number [3] in the Preferences/Peers pane, say to 4, I don't see any indication of peers increasing. What I do see is the number of ACTIVE TRANSFERS increasing. This parameter, in that it sets another transfer on seed, does not seem to be peer-oriented and appears to me to be mis-labeled, in that adds another actively seeding transfer... what it does with peers, despite the fact that the pane indicates the number is peer oriented (and your good opinion also), is invisible to me as far as I can see.

What am I missing here?

Thanks, dwdockins

Ok, my description may not have been the best but it is basically as you say. The one thing I might have pressed more is that it only counts active ones and that each torrent counts separately for the same peer. Not sure if it counts simultaneous upload and download of one torrent as separate connections to the same peer.