Only devices that have the full file can send pieces to other devices.
(Well, technically, they could of course send pieces even if they don’t have the full file. But they won’t announce the file to their peers until the have the full file, so they won’t know about it and hence can’t ask for the pieces.)
Thanks for clarification - this is opposite from what I expected from a P2P program
Are there any plans to change this behavior and reuse existing pieces?
This would really help lot with big files and slow internet lines if a file is synced with multiple devices that are all interconnected.
Having a block index makes it easier. Granted, currently it doesn’t help because the temp files aren’t indexed nor announced, but if we did separate things out to announce for example file lists and available blocks (by hash) separately… That might help with the encrypted nodes stuff as well, maybe.
Thanks for considering this feature
I’m sure this will speed up transfers because in many European countries DSL-lines are asymmetric
another related idea: it would be great to use existing blocks from files across folders
device A shares file 1 in folder X with device B and device Cdevice B shares same file 1 in folder Y with device C
a (complete) download would not be necessary because device C already has (some) all blocks of file 1