HOW TO Quickie: Azureus Caching

March 12, 2006

It’s a known fact that BitTorrents can be abusive on hard drives, especially when running more than a few downloads. Things are constantly being written to the hard drive, file space being allocated, file contents verification and more. If you use Azureus for BitTorrent you can help out your hard drive by going to Preferences/Options » Files » Performance Options. Enabling disk caching is a must for Azureus users utilizing a 2.5″ or smaller laptop-style hard drive, such as in a Mac Mini, which tends to get overworked rather easily.

By default, hard disk caching is enabled, but only to 4MB. You should boost this to somewhere around 16 to 24MB, depending on how powerful your system is. Azureus warns that anything over 32MB is probably overkill. Be sure to read the blurb to the right of the cache box as it will let you know what your maximum Java virtual machine size is, mine currently being 224MB. You want to keep your cache size at least 32MB below that number at all times or risk crashing Java.

Enter the cache size in MB you wish to use in the Size of cache in MB field, ensure that Enable disk cache is checked and click Save.

Azureus Disk Caching

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13 comments … read them below or add one

  1. Matt says:

    Definetly a helpful tip, I’ve always felt there’re lots of flaws in Azureus’ default configuration. I wrote about another Azureus tip pertaining to the latest version that people can check out here.

  2. Michael says:

    Wow I didn’t know that. Thanks!

  3. scottfrye says:

    What exactly “does depending on how powerful your system is” mean?

  4. Michael says:

    He probably means virtual memory.

    scottfrye, Ah another anime blogger. It’s so neat to see two people from different blogsphere’s cross paths. I myself don’t watch enough anime to warrent an exclusive anime blog.

  5. By powerful, I meant how much RAM you have… the more system RAM, generally the more that is allocated to the JVM.

  6. Andreas says:

    Hi there!

    I am running xp pro sp2 on 2 gb ram with 64bit 3.3gig.
    I realy like azureus,but it is just not doing a good job for me!Since 3 nights i am trying to configure azureus with all your helpful hints and tricks but it is not possible to surf the net with any speed(took me nearly 1 minute to open this page here!That is realy PAINFUL!!).Even if i d/l only one movie i can’t get more than average 11/kbs speed!I set u/l to between 5to 15 and still can’t browse the net with a descent speed!My hair is starting to become realy GRAY now!I don’t want to give up on Azureus,please tell me the SECRET!!I never hat browse speed and d/l speed prob’s with tornado,but i do like Azureus!Please help Quickly!!

    THANK’S A LOT!!

    ANDREAS

  7. Sander says:

    Never changed this default value. I will try. Thanks.

  8. wolser says:

    My azureus two months old “he”is hardworking.Now I have some problems:1-autospeed settings 2-speed control settings 3-azSMRC for one user good for what?Who know?Anybody can help me?

  9. wolser says:

    Take me easy I’m beginer!If you please!

  10. Azureus 512 says:

    Im using Azureus ver. 2.5.0.0 and woulod appreciate anyone’s helping me to speed my downloads im new to this soft. and need instructions

    P.S: my connection is “ADSL 512 KB” :p
    Thanks All

  11. Vic says:

    Wow I didn’t know that.

  12. Vic says:

    It’s a known fact that BitTorrents can be abusive on hard drives, especially when running more than a few downloads. Things are constantly being written to the hard drive, file space being allocated, file contents verification and more. If you use Azureus for BitTorrent you can help out your hard drive by going to Preferences/Options » Files » Performance Options. Enabling disk caching is a must for Azureus users utilizing a 2.5″ or smaller laptop-style hard drive, such as in a Mac Mini, which tends to get overworked rather easily.

    By default, hard disk caching is enabled, but only to 4MB. You should boost this to somewhere around 16 to 24MB, depending on how powerful your system is. Azureus warns that anything over 32MB is probably overkill. Be sure to read the blurb to the right of the cache box as it will let you know what your

  13. Denel Onomotopoiea says:

    I am a new Azureus user. I have spend hours of my time learning it…

    Basically, you should get a good torrent first, I noticed that good and healthy torrents really have faster download speeds. ( Good torrent usually has many seeders, good tracker and less peers).

    NAT problems really sucks me at first, I am using a router and so I have to configure my router in order to make this problem dissapear… After that, again I have to edit my Lan TCP/IP to allow Azureus from being block by the Windows firewall. And it is a very good feelings when all the yellow faces turn GREEN SMILEY FACES! You should FIX your NAT(Network Adressing Translation) in order to have faster download speed.

    Lastly, your setting. Setting really plays a role in determining your download speed… And one thing I notice i you should choose the local bandwidth tester rather than somewhere far from your location, this applies for those using ADSL connection. Check with your ISP, they
    should have bandwidth tester, look for your upload speed, and later just follow the tabe or contact AzBot in the IRC.

    LAst, Azureus ROCKS!!

3 Trackbacks

  1. [...] After reading Paul’s How-To on Azureus Caching it made me want to share another helpful Azureus tip that has cured an age (3 and a half semesters, anyway) old problem for me. For those of you who’ve been living under a rock or hunting Bigfoot in South America for the past few years, BitTorrent now accounts for roughly 50% of all internet traffic by some estimates. This has given cause to many ISPs and universities to throttle torrent bandwidth substantially (substantially is Greek for unfairly, or was it geek?). I, for one, do not welcome our new bandwidth throttling overlords (Yeah, it was definetly geek, not Greek). Now I can understand the MPAA’s FUD about sharing copywrited material so on and so forth- BitTorrent’s earned itself a bad stigma, but why should I have to suffer? Thanks to Azureus now I don’t, and neither do you! As of version 2.4 of of everyone’s favorite Java BitTorrent client, Azureus now supports end to end encryption of file transfers. This means the traffic that your service provider once saw as naughty (regardless of legality) is now gobbledegook, which is officialy A-OKAY by them. Say goodbye to 3.2kb/s downloads! [...]

  2. [...] Now I decided to do my homework properly and started to search after the optimal configuration with OS X/Azuarus/1024mb ram – but no luck! Not much to read about the disk cache at all! I found a nice blog entry that mention it, but the azureus wiki simply say “Important: set it to 32 MB or less!”. Very confusing. [...]

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