How to set bandwidth limit in Torrents

Most of us install torrents like Bit Torrent or Utorrent in our machine and then download content without bothering much about the monthly download or upload limit. Torrents is known for pulling all your bandwidth and will slow down all other

downloads. There is a way to set bandwidth limit in torrents client and in doing so you can have better control over download limit.

Follow the following steps:

• Download and Install Torrent Client.
• Go to Options >> Preference >> Bandwidth as shown below.
• You can set upload limit. The limit that you set here is for all torrents put together. Say, if you have kept 5 torrents to download then the limit that you set here is all of these five put together. Here Maximum Upload Rate = zero means the upload limit is set to Unlimited. I usually keep it below 10 kbps.
• Similarly set download limit. Usually I set this to the maximum possible limit or zero (= Unlimited).

This is useful if you have a monthly internet usage limit. You can set very low upload limit and high download limit. Usually, Internet service providers set a download limit beyond which you will be charged or they will lower the speed as they have something called ‘Fair Usage Policy’. You always have an option to buy more and increase the download limit. Note that as per internet service providers the download limit means the total usage – upload and download usage put together and not just the download. Usually the upload speed will be 1/4th the download speed. So, it always better to keep the upload limit as low as possible.

The other reason why you need to set bandwidth limit is to download non-torrent content. As soon as you start downloading something using torrents, all you bandwidth is pulled by Torrents and if there is any non-torrent content that you are downloading then it will almost come down to zero. In the worst case, even browsing or watching YouTube video is not possible.  Say, if your download rate is 1Mbps then set the download limit in torrent client to 750 kbps and keep the remaining 250 kbps for other non-torrent downloads or browsing. You can always change these settings.