Torrents and Cloud Storage

Downloading files by using the filesharing protocol ‘bittorrent’ has become wildly popular in the last few years. Also, having a personal “file locker” space up in the “Cloud” is also very common. But are these two technologies incompatible or is there an easy way to use one to the other?

First, let’s clear up on what’s exactly what on each one. Are you clear on what is ‘bittorrent’, ‘torrents’, ‘magnets’ and ‘links’?

Bittorrent is a new way to share files, but it’s name applies to the “protocol”, or in layman’s terms, the way they are transferred, and how the computer knows how to download the files. It was invented by a programmer called Bram Cohen, when he focused on how would be the best ways for multiple users to share a files between themselves, and trying to do that in the fastest way possible!

Now, “Torrent file” is what we named some small files that have just the fewest necessary information to download the final files. It has all the technical info, like how many files, their sizes, and other technical stuff designed to verify that you download the right files. These are small files, usually less than 5 megabytes (the size of a common photograph file).

Now, magnets are like the the “torrent file”, it lets you tell the software which file you want, but it’s reduced to just a unique string of characters… like a web-link! But instead of using “https://www”, etc. , it begins with ‘magnet:’. Usually you find them on torrent sites with a small magnet icon, which is easy to identify.

Now, if you have not downloaded torrents, before, it’s actually quite easy. You just provide the software the ‘torrent file’, or the magnet link, and it downloads to your computer.

But what if you want to download it elsewhere, like your ‘DropBox’, or ‘Gmail Drive’ account?

So those are what are known as “Cloud Storage”, and you can get quite some space for free. But what exactly are they?

Cloud is actually just another way to say “On the Internet”, or more precisely, “On a Server available on the Internet”. So Cloud storage is just that, disk space that is on a server on the Internet. Obviously, your private files are just not there for anyone to browse through, so they are protected with a password you defined when you registered.

Most of these cloud storage spaces are designed to be a “Backup”, or a copy, of your local computer files. The software just uploads them whenever you add or change them. But there’s a few other advantages on having them on the cloud: You can access them from any computer or device that can connect to the Internet; You can download and edit files or documents; You can keep Music and Movies and see them from any device like tablets or phones; You can share files or whole folders with family and friends!

Transfer Torrents to your Cloud Drive

So now, how would you mix the two? Normally you couldn’t: You would have to download your files first to your computer, then take those files and upload them again, wasting both your upload and download bandwidth. Also, most ISPs limit their uploads speeds, so you are limited by the slowest one!

So, the best way to do this is to use a server that is on the Cloud (connected all the time to the Internet on a high-bandwidth link) that does it. But you would have to configure it, install it, and it’s actually a bit technical to have it working (and you need to send all those commands via the ‘command-line’, and how to install software by typing in commands!).

But there’s an easy way, use https://TransferCloud.io . This website allows you to download the torrents to it’s servers, and then it transfers them back to YOUR personal cloud! As it’s connected by high-speed links, this can be done even in less than a minute, for files that are quite big, like the size of a DVD!

You register first, then just paste in a magnet link, or a URL link to a torrent file… or you can upload a .torrent file. The server passes it to a Bittorrent Client and saves your files to your space. You can then download it directly from the server, or you can specify a “Save Point”. This save point is on which Folder of you Cloud Drive would you like the files put in. After transferring, it then frees the server space so you can continue downloading more.

Also, if you get an unlimited drive space, like Amazon Cloud Drive or OpenDrive, you can continue downloading indefinitely! Just paste all the links you want, and with a “Power” account, you can leave queued all the links you have!! It will download them at the fastest speed possible, and save them all for you to download later.

We’ll see that in another post, but for now, if you have any questions, please contact us.