In this guide we aim to explain what Ratio Groups are in ruTorrent and how they can help you manage your seedbox. Credit and source material by cfpe – torrent-invites.com
How do rutorrent ratio groups work?
Each ratio group consists of 4 different conditions ( Min,% / Max,% / UL,MB / Time,h ) and an action. Whether the action of a ratio group will be triggered depends on which conditions have been satisfied. Whether an individual condition has been satisfied (for a particular torrent) depends on either
- How much has been uploaded in percentage (Min,% and Max,%) or
- How much has been uploaded in MB (UL,MB) or
- How many hours the torrent has been seeded (Time,h)
For the sake of simplicity, these four conditions can be put in two different groups:
The Min,% and UL,MB conditions (mandatory)
These conditions are “packaged together”. That means only if both conditions have been satisfied, the action will be triggered. One condition alone doesn’t suffice.
The Max,% and Time,h conditions (optional)
Each of these condition is independend from all other conditions. That means, as soon as one of Max,% or Time,h is satisfied, the action will be triggered, regardless of whether the other conditions are satisfied or not. So these are hard limits. You can turn the Max,% condition off with “0” and the Time,h conditions with “-1”.
The following table shows which combinations of satisfied conditions will trigger the selected action
✔ = condition has been satisfied
x = condition has not been satisfied or is turned off
Note that there are limits to what you can do with ratio groups. For example, you cannot require a torrent to have both a minimum ratio and a minimum seed time. However, if you need such conditions you can use another tool such as rtcontrol.
A ratio group / torrent size example
Here is an example that shows after how much uploaded MB the action of a particular ratio group is triggered for torrents with different sizes. The Time condition has not been set (-1) for this example ratio group.
Torrent size 700 MB Action trigerred after 700 MB has been uploaded Reason the Min 100% upload (700 MB) and UL,MB (500 MB) conditions are both satisfied Torrent size 350 MB Action trigerred after 500 MB has been uploaded Reason the Min 100% upload (350 MB) and UL,MB (500 MB) conditions are both satisfied Torrent size 100 MB Action trigerred after 200 MB has been uploaded Reason the Max 200% upload (200 MB) condition has been satisfied
Ratio groups examples
These are examples of commonly used ratio groups which you can easily amend to your own needs.
Example 1
Torrents should stop always after reaching a 2.5 ratio
If Min % = Max % then the UL,MB condition has (practically) no effect. The Time,h condition has to be turned off (-1).
Alternatively you can specify the following conditions
In this case the UL,MB condition (0 MB upload) is always satisfied. So as soon as the torrent reaches a 2.5 ratio the action will be triggered.
Example 2
Torrents should stop always after 48 hours seeding regardless of how much (or little) has been uploaded
Set the Min % condition to a very high value that is very unlikely to be reached by any torrent. This will (practically) turn both the Min % and the UL,MB condition off. So the only remaining relevant condition is the Time,h condition.
Example 3
Torrents should not longer seed than 48 hours and should not have a ratio greater than 1.5
The Time,h condition sets the maximum seed duration in hours. However, the action will be triggered before 48 hours have been passed if the torrent reaches a 1.5 ratio.
