Seedbox

A seedbox is a private dedicated server used for the uploading and downloading of digital files. [cite web
last=McCaskill
first=Brandon
authorlink=
coauthors=
title=Need Upload Banwidth? Get a Seedbox
work=Slyck.com
publisher=
date=2007-08-24
url=http://www.slyck.com/story1577.html
format=
doi=
accessdate=2008-07-24] Seedboxes generally make use of the BitTorrent protocol for uploading and downloading, although they have also been used on the eDonkey2000 network. Seedboxes are plugged in to high speed bandwidth networks, often with a throughput of 100 Mbit/s (~= 12 MB/s or ~=715 MB per minute) or more. Files are uploaded to a seedbox from other BitTorrent users, and from there they can be downloaded at high speeds to a user's personal computer via the HTTP, FTP, SFTP, or rsync protocols.

Seedboxes can run Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X, *BSD, etc. operating systems. More expensive seedboxes provide VNC connection, or remote desktop protocol on some Windows-based seedboxes, allowing many popular BitTorrent, newsgroup or eDonkey2000 clients to be run on the seedbox remotely. Other seedboxes are special purpose and run variety of torrent specific software including web interfaces of popular clients like Transmission, rTorrent and μTorrent, as well as the famous TorrentFlux and TorrentFlux-b4rt web interface clients. These seedboxes usually have torrent specific rules as well, say 4 simultaneous torrents as an example. More clients can be found by doing a comparison of BitTorrent software.

Seedboxes on high speed networks are typically able to download large files within minutes. A 1 GB (1,073,741,824 bytes) file can take less than five minutes to download. As a matter of fact an entire terabyte can be downloaded or uploaded in about an hour. That same 1 gigabyte file can be uploaded to other users in the same amount of time, creating a 1:1 upload:download ratio for that individual file. The ability of a seedbox to transfer files so quickly is one of the big attractions seedboxes hold within the P2P community, and within the BitTorrent community in particular.

Because of the mentioned high speeds, seedboxes tend to be extremely popular inside private torrent trackers, where mantaining a ratio above 1 is very important. These seedboxes also serve as a kind of proxy, because a user's actual IP address is not shown, the server's one being shown instead.

People who need full control over their server will often purchase these servers for a potentially expensive price from a seller. Others, however, will often buy torrentflux accounts or server accounts to try and share expenses. Due to high bandwidth demands for such server uses, many providers choose to disallow torrents, in an effort to spare the network.

References

External links

* [http://filesharefreak.com/2008/05/04/review-and-comparison-of-torrentflux-hosting-services/ Independent Seedbox Hosting review and comparison]
* [http://startdownloading.com/blog/3/why-you-need-a-seedbox BitTorrent use on a Seedbox versus BitTorrent use at home]
* [http://torrent-source.net/?p=64 Independent list of places to get seedboxes]