What are seeds and leechers (peers) in torrents?

Number of seeds and leechers (peers) play an important role in determining the download speed of torrent file. So what exactly is meaning of torrents (bittorrent, utorrent) seeds and leechers?

What are seeds?
A seed is a client that has a complete copy of the data of a certain torrent. Once your BitTorrent client finishes downloading, it will remain open until you click the Finish button (or otherwise close it). This is known as being a seed or seeding.

What are leechers?
A leecher is a client that is currently downloading the data of a torrent. A leecher does not have the complete file, otherwise it would be called a seed.

Conclusion:
Seeds have the complete file and are actively sharing ... peers are downloading the file and have part of it and usually are sharing pieces also ... high numbers of each are best for speed ... low numbers of seeds and high peers will make it slow .. low numbers on each will make it slow ......

Your Ad Here

Caution:
If a file has 0 seeders or a vast amount more leechers/peers than seeders then it is a risk of a virus, if possible it is best to view any comments associated with the file first. Don't be fooled by torrents with more or most seeds and peers.

More for experts:

Leech:
=====
an egoistic person who downloads a file using P2P technology, and who does NOT share (enough) with others when in possession of the complete file, reducing it's Availability. Normally in BitTorrent, it is polite and considerate to leave your connection open long after you finish downloading to seed - so that other peers in the swarm, who do NOT yet have the complete file yet, benefit from you sharing, as you did benefit from others sharing when you originally downloaded the torrent. Some share more, some share less, but a leech is somebody who closes their connection as soon as they have downloaded the complete file. In the long run, your total Share Ratio (Tools > Statistics > Transfers Tab) should always be >1.000!








Seed:
====
a peer who has 100% of the torrent and is only uploading to other peers. Seed is also used as a verb, as in "I'm going to be seeding this file overnight", meaning leave open and available for other users to download. Usually, a person with the whole file is a 'seed', while someone with a partial amount is a peer. Remember that a seed is not a file server. We're not talking about "magic seeds" here, so get any idea like that out of your mind. Connecting to more seeds does not necessarily mean that you'll finish downloading any faster. If you don't connect to all the seeds in a swarm, or even if you don't connect to any seeds, it does not mean Azureus is doing anything wrong. For any random torrent, you might download faster when connected only to 5 other peers and no seeds than you might with some other random torrent while connected to 50 seeds and no other peers. Seeding torrents improves your Share Ratio.

So, go ahead enjoy the file-sharing experience with Mininova after having a good knowledge about what are leechers and seeds in torrentz?
Which country downloads the most torrents
Source: Mininova, Yahoo Answers.
Learn what are torrents?