Same Vuze on different computers

[LDG]

I'm trying to make the same copy of Vuze accessible from two computers.  I have a series of external hard drives connected to a third computer and everything is shared over the network/homegroup.  I have uninstalled and and run set up for Vuze on the two main computers a number of times and I can finally open Vuze from both computers.  I was surprised to be able to open it on two computers at the same time.  My confusion however comes from two areas...
1.  Both computers have Vuze set up to put new torrent files and downloads into the same folder.  However, after starting a couple on one and closing Vuze there, I open Vuze up on the other computer and find no torrents already started.  I'm trying to make it so that if one computer is being used for gaming or movies, I can open the downloads on the other and just keep going where I left off.
2.  My second area of confusion came when I deleted the Vuze folder from my desktop (already on an external) and when opening Vuze, it came back with a number of Java related alerts.  I deleted the same folder on the other computer and it worked fine.

In the end, I'm trying to have Vuze open from and download to external hard drives.  I've simply had too much trouble in the past with files becoming corrupt after I copy them over.

Let me know if this makes sense or if clarity is needed.  All thoughts appreciated.  Thanks!

[GaryE]

Can you do what you are trying to do . . . yes . . . but it will probably require you to write some code to do it automatically.

You should be able to do it manually.

First off make sure you are using two different ports on your two instances of Vuze on the same home network otherwise all kinds of craziness will ensue especially if you use private torrent sites.

Honestly what you really want is a NAS and to just run a torrent client on it.  That is the simplest solution.

Every-time you stop a torrent before you are done downloading it . . . you are probably going to have to redownload somewhere between a few block and 10's of blocks of the torrent in question.  So after you stop Vuze on computer 1 . . . you will have to rehash check the parts of the torrent you already have on computer 2 -- depending upon the size of the torrents you download that could result in the loss of anywhere between a few minutes and 10's of minutes.  Also do not be surprised if you have to redownload 1% or 10% or so of the torrent (depending on size).

If you are doing this on a public site . . . I guess there is no real harm in re-downloading pieces/blocks but if you are on a private site that is going to be a problem unless you have a pretty descent ratio buffer.

So here is what to do manually:

1) download the .torrent file to a common location on that external drive.
2) open that .torrent file on Computer A
3) download that until you need to stop it
4) open that torrent client on Computer B and open the same .torrent file that you already downloaded
5) make sure the client on Computer B is pointing to the correct place and that it hash checks the existing data.
6) download until complete

Now starting from step 4 . . . I think there is a way that you can have Vuze automatically check a folder for new .torrent files and it will automatically download them . . . but that is not a feature that I use.  You would have to be sure that the instance of Vuze which is on Computer B is not running at the same time as Computer A.  If you want to run both at the same time . . . and have it automated to any extent it is going to be pretty complicated (if it is even possible -- which I doubt).

If you want to have it fully automated you will need a program that somehow sends a signal to Vuze to tell it when to stop downloading from Computer A and to start the process on Computer B.  And you would have to have both computers using the same folder to store the Vuze application data where Vuze stores the vuze specific .torrent file(s) -- but that is theoretical I have no idea if you could make that work but sharing the same Vuze application data is the only way you could avoid re-hash checking the data that I can think of.

Honestly, it sounds to me like an awful lot of headache for very little reward.  I am sure you could get it to work some how.  But again . . . you could just get an old computer install NAS4Free on it . . . then install a proper torrent client (like rTorrent or rTorrent/ruTorrent instead of the crappy Transmission) onto that computer and cram it full of HD's then bingo you have a NAS and your troubles are over.

What you seem to be trying to do is to duplicate the functionality of a NAS without getting a NAS.  Like I said you might be able to get it to work . . . but for my money and my time . . . you would be far better off spending your time getting a NAS up and running -- but that is a personal choice.

It is an interesting question . . . but depending upon how much you torrent . . . it is going to take a lot of effort unless you are a pretty proficient programmer.  Meaning that if you download even say just 1 torrent a day that you want to be able to download from both computers I would expect that after a few months you would have spent the same amount of time as it would take to get a NAS running.

[LDG]

Manually doesn't seem THAT bad, but I suppose it could get tedious.  How do I go about setting up Vuze on two different ports?

I'm guessing that when you say rehash check, that is right clicking the file and doing that recheck?  I'm fine with it redownloading at least some of the files...I just wouldn't want that to somehow corrupt the finished file.

I'll see what I can find about utilizing a NAS...I have long thought that a server would be more reliable than my current set up (of three hard drives plugged into a USB strip that are being shared via a seemingly delicate Homegroup Network).

Come to think of it, how would a NAS avoid these problems?  I feel like both methods perform the same operation of accessing the same copy of Vuze.  Is there another torrent client that any of this would be better/easier on?  You mentioned rTorrent, and in some quick research I found one person to have some JVM crash problems. 

I'm still going to try the manual way for the time being to see how annoying it gets and if it works well but am just open to other, better ways.

Thanks for the feedback!

[GaryE]

Go to settings . . . and choose Connections . . . there should be a window which says Incoming TCP listen port and another which says UDP open port

For each of those choose a different port in the approximate range of 50,000 to 60,000  Do that on both installations and restart your client.  However if you are sharing the same settings that is not going to work.  If you are sharing settings from your external HDS to both computers you will only have to do that once.  In which case you should not run Vuze on both computers at the same time . . . that is going to cause a lot of problems.

If you are worried about port forwarding (which you should be) forward each of those ports on all of your firewalls.  If you need help with that either turn on uPnP (the easy but less secure way) on Vuze and your firewall(s) or manually forward your ports.  If you need help forwarding ports check out portforward.com for instruction.

Yes you can manually rehash check a torrent by right clicking the torrent and choosing recheck.  The point of rehash checking the files is to make sure there is no corruption.

A NAS would avoid those problems because you just leave your NAS running and leave your torrent client running on your NAS 24*7 and just access the files when you want/need them.

rTorrent runs on unix installations.  since NAS4Free and FreeNAS are based on FreeBSD (a variety of Unix) you have essentially three choices of clients on that OS

1) Transmission (which is built into to both systems)
2) Deluge
3) rTorrent or rTorrent/ruTorrent
4) and probably some lesser know clients that I either can not think of and or would not recommend.

rTorrent is a text only torrent client . . . ruTorrent is a gui front end for rTorrent (it utilizes the rTorrent libraries so it is essentially rTorrent in a fancy frock).  rTorrent has almost no on-going issues and is accepted at most private torrent sites.

Deluge is a descent client but it has issues -- they generally get fixed but it has more issues than most but not as much as some.  It is reasonably well accepted at most private torrent sites.

Transmission sucks it has had bugs accurately reporting download stats for about 8 - 10 years and many many other problems far too numerous to mention.  It is in my considered opinion the worst torrent client ever made.  LOL  It is accepted at a lot of torrent sites for sundry reasons . . . many of which are idiotic but I digress.  LOL

If you are going to run a NAS simply you are going to want to run NAS4Free or FreeNAS . . . personally I use NAS4Free . . . it is slightly more open and it is generally considered to be the better option.  It is also more customizable.  But I am not going to lie to you . . . if you do not know unix there is going to be a pretty steep learning curve.  I have been using unix for years and I did the initial setup in about an hour but I would expect a complete novice to have to spend a day or so pouring over setup guides and youtube videos . . . but honestly for what you are trying to do I think it is probably the best choice.  There are some linux options for running NAS but they are relatively complex especially if you are not familiar with unix.

There are a lot of different reasons people will opt to use a NAS.  For me it is just the cheapest way to get the amount of storage I needed.  For others it is so that they can use a lower power consuming computer and still seed 24*7.  For others it is a way to easily share torrented files across their home networks to all of their devices (smartTV's, tablets, multiple computers, whatever).

As I said before it is going to depend upon how many torrents you download a week and how many times you switch from computer to computer.  I expect if you download say more than about 5 or 10 torrents a week the manual solution is going to old pretty quick but that is a personal thing!

Good Luck!

[LDG]

I'll see what I can do with the ports tonight.  Not running both iterations of Vuze at the same time, in theory I feel like it would cut the download time in half...but I know that's not going to happen the way I want it to.

I consider Vuze to be pretty user friendly...however it's the only torrent client I've used for that last few years.  I'm also using Windows 10 for all of this-my Unix/Linux days are long having passed.  It's sounding like rTorrent would be the direction I should go, but my concern is simply usability compared to Vuze. 

Do you have any recommendations for NAS hardware?  I have external hard drives in a separate room from my router...will this be a problem or will the externals connect to the NAS wirelessly?

I'm at maybe 5 torrents a week right now.  The size and number of the torrents sometimes spikes, but I think that's an accurate average.

[GaryE]

Running multiple instances of Vuze on the same home network will if anything make things run more slowly.

Let me give an example.  Let us say that you have a maximum upload and download speed of 50 Mbit/sec.  You can run 1 instance of Vuze and get that 50 Mbit/sec or run 50 instances at 1 Mbit/sec . . . you are still getting the same speed out of your ISP.  The weakest link in the chain is your connection to your ISP and running multiple instances of any torrent client is not going to change that.  At worse the extra overhead associated with running multiple torrent clients will slow things down; however, the difference would be so small I doubt you would even notice it (unless you did something crazy like ran 50 instances).

I have never actually used rTorrent/ruTorrent . . . there would be a learning curve I am sure but from everything I have heard it is not complicated.  The ruTorrent bundle has a descent GUI from what I have seen.

Well your needs are very different than mine.  I have an HP Proliant DL180 G6 (which is off-lease Enterprise grade hardware) which I put together for about $1,000 - $1,200 (I would have to add up everything I spent again to be sure . . . you can get a similar one pre-built for about 25% more than it cost me to put mine together) but that gives me a maximum of 14 drives (I have 7 in the thing right now) running hardware RAID 0, 1, 5, 6, 10, 50 or 60 (mine is running one RAID 5 and one RAID 6 array).  That is probably way overkill for your needs.  LOL  For about $250 less you can get the same setup without RAID 6 and RAID 60.

I am a Mac/unix guy I am very out of touch on Windows hardware . . . but the bottom line is that the requirements for running a NAS and integrated torrent client are pretty minimal especially if you run a light weight OS on it like FreeBSD/NAS4Free/FreeNAS.  Basically you just need a 7 - 10 year old computer in a case that can accept multiple drives.  Take the drives out of the external cases you have and put them in that computer case.  Then install the NAS software of your choice.  You should be able to get something for a few hundred US dollars.  If you want hardware raid you can add about $50 - $250 for that for a good hardware RAID card.  If you want to run software RAID you need to add enough memory so that you have 1 GB of RAM per 1 TB of HD space.  But if you just want a simple setup that you can connect either your current external drives to and or remove the externals from their cases and add them directly to the case (which is what I would recommend) you should be able to get something in the less than $300 range.  You can get pre-fabed NAS's which come empty (you put in your own drives) starting at roughly $350 - $400 but those generally come with horrible warranties (and completely non-customizable OS's so you would be stuck with Transmission) so you really are better off putting something together yourself.

Hell you could just get an older windows machine set up windows network sharing and put the drives in that computer and just run VUZE from there and off you go!

Setting up and sourcing a NAS is a very complicated topic . . . there are lots of places you could go to get a lot better advice than I could possible provide.  If it sounds like something you might want to do . . . just do your research.  There is a lot of info out there.  There are solutions in pretty much every price range from a few hundred dollars to 10's of thousands.  It just depends upon exactly what your goals are and how much expansion you want, your ability/desire to build it yourself, how much money you are willing to throw at the problem, etc etc etc.

If you do decide to go that way and you want my advice I will tell you what I think . . . but really the bottom line with things like getting/building a NAS is that it all depends on what you want much more than what someone else thinks.  Again it sounds to me like a NAS is a better solution for what you are trying to do but that is a personal preference nothing more and nothing less.

Good luck!

--- edit

Honestly with only adding 5 new torrents a week . . . you might be just fine doing things manually.  Again I am in a different solution . . . I download a minimum of 6 torrents a week (a show that gets broadcast 6 days a week) up to several hundred on a very rare extremely busy week LOL . . . so obviously it would drive me insane to do what you are trying LOL  But with only 5 or 10 times a week you might be fine with just doing everything manually.  Like I said personal preference is what rules!