Someone do the Maths please? (Download rates, etc)

wannabedamned · 11 Mar 2019 at 09:58

So I got myself an email from Virgin media last week telling me I'd downloaded 493GB in a month.

Now this is not an e-peen thing, I just mentioned it to the guys at work and 1 individual claims he got the same email but he's going on for hitting 5000GB.

Is that possible?? He's on the same package as me which is Vivid 350 - Speed test shows me at 386mbps.

Which according to the internet is pretty much what the package offers:

Virgin VIVID 350 Up to 350Mbps 358.4Mbps (I'm over that, yay)

It's just my usage is pretty relentless, without going into details my internet doesn't stop, whether it's uploading or downloading(Torrents,Legal obviously). I also have a Plex server setup(Streaming externally), and constant streaming going on with Prime, Netflix.

My Maths skills suck, but going on how busy my connection is I can't fathom someone getting 10x that?

glenimp617 · 11 Mar 2019 at 10:01

5TB in a month is going some

I used to be a very heavy user a few years back when I was involved with a scene group (those were the days) constantly downloading and uploading GBs of data but even I would struggle to hit 5TB in a month

That's 100 uncompressed bluray ISOS

Most people at that end of the spectrum use their works connection, epecially if that is a gig+ line with allowed VPN traffic

jimjamuk · 11 Mar 2019 at 10:02

Yeah - looks like it can be done

https://www.calculator.net/bandwidt...width2unit=mb&ctype=2&x=34&y=19#download-time

At 100% thats just over a day. Ignoring dips in performance, round trip time etc

touch · 11 Mar 2019 at 10:05

5000GB = 40,000,000 Megabits
2505600 seconds in an average month (used 29 days)

So you'd need 15mbps maxed out at 100% for a month to hit 5000GB usage.
Or about 4% utilisation of your max 368Mbps speed.

edited because I calculated the number of seconds in a month wrong...doh!

Rannoch · 11 Mar 2019 at 10:10

That’s only 166gb a day. Can be done.

jimjamuk · 11 Mar 2019 at 10:19

Heres another https://www.omnicalculator.com/other/bandwidth#download-speed-and-download-time-calculator

It would take just over a day at full wack - but think of it this way 350mbs is downloading 1GB roughly every 22-23 seconds - hes only downloading 5000

OP - how do you measure your bandwidth to know you are using it that much? (Speedtest is a single download which you must know the ISP's must put into a QOS class to allow its full bandwidth to be used, to give you the best download rate reported as its in their own interest). Full HD streams from Netflix/Amazon really dont eat into your available 350mbps that much at all

peterwalkley · 11 Mar 2019 at 10:24

What's his eyesight like ? That is an awful lot of porn.

malachi · 11 Mar 2019 at 10:45

peterwalkley said:
What's his eyesight like ? That is an awful lot of porn.

Not if they are downloading at 4K/2140p

jimjamuk · 11 Mar 2019 at 10:52

I think the download requirements for 4k are something like 25mbps so these guys could be streaming 14 x 4k films constantly - thats a lot of kleenex.......

Rids · 11 Mar 2019 at 11:08

Out of interest, what was the Virgin email? Asking you to moderate your usage?

wannabedamned · 11 Mar 2019 at 12:20

jimjamuk said:
OP - how do you measure your bandwidth to know you are using it that much? (Speedtest is a single download which you must know the ISP's must put into a QOS class to allow its full bandwidth to be used, to give you the best download rate reported as its in their own interest). Full HD streams from Netflix/Amazon really dont eat into your available 350mbps that much at all

Rids said:
Out of interest, what was the Virgin email? Asking you to moderate your usage?

Virgin have sent me a few over the last 12 months, just a well done for downloading! I think it's a pat on the back for themselves more than anything, marketing. But it gives me my monthly download, vs the rest of users

As for the ability to download that amount, Well I'll be damned!

I suppose even though I do consider myself a heavy user, others are heavier! I still think he may be telling fibs though, after thinking about it another way... I know his PC spec, He hasn't got the hard drive space!!

benjii · 11 Mar 2019 at 12:33

Rids said:
Out of interest, what was the Virgin email? Asking you to moderate your usage?

It's just a, "Look how much you like using the internet we provide you" email.

wannabedamned said:
I suppose even though I do consider myself a heavy user, others are heavier! I still think he may be telling fibs though, after thinking about it another way... I know his PC spec, He hasn't got the hard drive space!!

He could be torrenting and regularly deleting what he downloads.

RoyMi6 · 11 Mar 2019 at 14:45

To be honest, if I was your mate I'd be auditing my network.

Even in my heaviest of internet days on 300Mb cable there's not enough content to consume that warrant that kind of usage unless she's just subscribed to download every new release on a TV shows newsgroup or something

HangTime · 12 Mar 2019 at 08:02

wannabedamned said:
It's just my usage is pretty relentless, without going into details my internet doesn't stop, whether it's uploading or downloading(Torrents,Legal obviously). I also have a Plex server setup(Streaming externally), and constant streaming going on with Prime, Netflix.

My Maths skills suck, but going on how busy my connection is I can't fathom someone getting 10x that?

The answer is your connection isn't as busy as you think it is if you are doing less than 500GB a month. Streaming video uses a lot of bandwidth relative to gaming/browsing etc but unless you are watching 4k it is still a fairly small fraction of your maximum speed - less than 10%. Upload is what 20mbit(?) on Virgin so again a small fraction of your total bandwidth would be used by your outward streaming and torrent uploads. Then for incoming torrents I guess it depends on whether the sources are good enough to max your connection.

SixTwoSix · 12 Mar 2019 at 08:24

Just checked my router, last restart 82 days ago, my Smart TV alone has used 790GB in that time, so 9.6GB per day, just shy of 300GB a month. That's with maybe 3/4 hours viewing (NF/Amazon/NowTV) per day in the evening and assorted YT cartoons for one hour a day for the little one.

Desktop PC is on 2TB, 24.4GB average per day, about 750GB per month - granted this could be an exception as I recently got additional storage and went on a downloading blitz of pretty much everything on Steam I hadn't played and a few other platforms. Destiny 2 is something like 80GB, R6 Siege around 70GB, games are getting silly big.

I'm only on a 30Mbps connection and that's all normal legal downloads averaging over 1TB per month. Now just imagine someone with a 300Mb+ connection who torrents all day long.

wolfie138 · 12 Mar 2019 at 08:50

peterwalkley said:
What's his eyesight like ? That is an awful lot of porn.

probably better than his wrist.

Chris1712 · 12 Mar 2019 at 11:57

When I shared house with 5 other nerds we would regularly hit 3tb a month, and that was before UHD was a thing so I can see it being doable yes.

jrwagh333 · 12 Mar 2019 at 13:24

I'm doing an average of 582GB per month

MG42Maniac · 12 Mar 2019 at 14:24

Connection time:
10 days,14 Hours 01 Mins 07 Secs

Data usage:
183.4 GB Uploaded / 799.0 GB Downloaded

Most of that will be my Plex server. Also, we tend to watch a lot of 4K content on smart devices. Meh it's unlimited so who cares.

Werewolf · 12 Mar 2019 at 14:26

I just checked my router and hit about 200gb in a day last week :eek:

I think a lot of that was probably a couple of games I'd bought (50gb+ each!), some other games updating with 5-10gb patches and some random stuff.

At 200-300mbs you can download an awful lot in quite a short space of time without realising it.