Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2005
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- 8,972
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- Clydebank
Since when.. I've seen 3 quoted many places, but I've found that you can often get stuff that's 4 days (mostly) Are you sure it's not 7 for the text servers?
Usenet
- Thread starter welshdragon
- Start date
Hmm so less connections but longer retention for a dollar more...
Hmmmm - not sure if its worth the switch really
ps3ud0
When you break it down, it's about 70pence more yes, but 20 connections is more than enough. When I was at university even 10 used to max out (my hard drive was the bottle neck!). I'd be much happier with a higher retention rate, personally
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Aug 2005
- Posts
- 8,972
- Location
- Clydebank
2.5Mb is more than enough, you'll get better speeds than something like Torrent any day.
You may want to go for the 180GB package rather than a monthly sub from Astraweb, although it really depends how much you'll download. You'll have to figure out what works out cheapest for you.
I'm on 512K and Usenet works perfectly for me. Yes, it takes ages to download anything, but that doesn't mean it's pointless, just means I have to wait a bit longer to get the 'latest Linux Distro'.
Ok thanks a lot for that info
well atm I roughly download around 30GB a month max really. But I guess that could change if I get a much better download speed-atm the max download speed I get is 230kB/s.It's 7 days retention mate
What does the above mean?
Retention is a measure of how long a data is retained on the server from the date it's posted.
So for example, in Virgin's case, it will be deleted after 7 days and you wont be able to download it after then. In Astraweb's case it will be stored for over 700+ days.
When something is posted to one server, it automatically gets copied to every other usenet server in the world. The only difference is that some servers are bigger (astraweb), so they can retain the data for longer, and some are smaller (Virgin), so they can only hold onto the data for a short time before they need to make space for new posts.
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If you're shopping around for providers the other metrics are number of connections and the completion.
Number of connections is largely a moot point, I can saturate my 10mbit connection with two connections from Astraweb.
The completion is important. If there are bits of data missing here and there, the often-uploaded PAR files can be used to correct for a small amount of data loss, but if your usenet provider only has 50% of what was uploaded in a given day, it'll be frustrating to say the least.
Number of connections is largely a moot point, I can saturate my 10mbit connection with two connections from Astraweb.
The completion is important. If there are bits of data missing here and there, the often-uploaded PAR files can be used to correct for a small amount of data loss, but if your usenet provider only has 50% of what was uploaded in a given day, it'll be frustrating to say the least.
Hows Astraweb for that now - I think thats what put me off when I was looking as its completion seemed to yo-yo...
ps3ud0
They are having some problems at the mo. Reading that quite a few people are getting fed up with them and thinking about going to Giganews.
I run into a completion problem and got a Giga account to finish it off.
They are having some problems at the mo. Reading that quite a few people are getting fed up with them and thinking about going to Giganews.
I run into a completion problem and got a Giga account to finish it off.
Never had an issue here. Anything that has been partial has been easily fixed with the PARs.
Giganews don't allow multiple connections from multiple IPs either, in fact none do afaik.
Giganews FAQ said:
If you are then you are fooling the system somehow :/
If that isn't what you mean and you actually mean being able to take your laptop with you and download on the move, I do that all the time.
