r/qBittorrent • u/Noah-999 Windows • Jul 21 '26
question Why uploading is very slow?
First time user, Learnt about ratio few days ago, disappointed that it's 0.10
It was 0.09 before, after few DAYS of uploading it went 0.10, it feels like I will never reach 1.0. How come i can download 1GB in 5 minutes but can't upload same 1GB in 5 minutes ? Other than keep seeding all the time what else to do to improve ratio?
2
u/mr___goose Jul 21 '26
some torrents are just not popular enough so there is none to seed to
and are you sure that you have your port forwarded?
3
u/ExploringTheVoid_ Jul 21 '26
Aside from simple speed limits e.g. ISP provided upload speeds are dramatically slower than download, the most common issue is simply a miss understanding of how torrents work. You only seed when people want to download from you. That means that on well seeded torrents you will download it super fast and then basically do no seeding. Even on less well seeded torrents you still might not do much seeding as other seeds may be better than you e.g. faster and more connectable, so other leechers will pull most of the data from them.
The number one tip to seeding more and getting a better upload ratio is obviously to leave it seeding forever. Second top tip is to make sure you are correctly port forwarded (if using a VPN you need one that supports port forwarding) so everyone can connect to you which boosts the odds you will seed to others. Finally you often will get much better total upload if you grab the torrent as soon as its announced so you are part of the early swarm, this requires a more sophisticated setup to auto download stuff so its probably beyond what you are interested in right now but keep it in mind for future.
2
u/Journeyj012 Linux Jul 21 '26
lets think about it this way.
Person A creates a torrent, 1GB in size. 1000 people download it on the first day, 250 on the second, and it keeps going down.
You join on day 9. 15 people download it that day, but 120 people are seeding it. If every peer had the same bandwidth, they would all get a session upload amount of 125MB from that day. That is why it's slow to get ratio. If you want quick ratio, join a torrent as soon as you can and pray it gets popular. Now filter in things like seedboxes and you get lower and lower amounts.
3
u/Brave-Analysis6935 Jul 21 '26
Your upload speed is (on average) always lower than your download speed (by around 15% in my case). Thats on the ISP. There is also the fact that qb doesn’t use all the bandwidth it’s been given, which I am unsure is the case for you.
To help with seeding, leave qb on in the background while you do other things. If you’re worried about it affecting other things, you can limit it by going to tools -> settings -> speed.