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If I set Utorrent to download files to a usb memory stick, will the computer first write the individually downloaded pieces to the local hard drive and then copy them over to the usb or do the packets go straight to the usb drive?

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Is viewing the hidden files on the USB key an option - you could just try it and see whether the pieces show up there... – Rob Mar 1 '11 at 0:35
it depends. By default, it should, but you can set utorrent to save to another location and move finished files – Journeyman Geek Mar 1 '11 at 5:00
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2 Answers

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I would assume, that µTorrent writes the data directly to the usb. Anyway, the data might still get onto your local hard drive, because Windows (and other operating systems) uses memory paging and swapping.

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Very true, depending on your system specs, it may be difficult to control Windows' paging habits. But uTorrent will write to the drive/partition specified, regardless of whether it is a flash drive, NAS drive or local hard drive. – MaQleod Mar 1 '11 at 2:50
It wouldn't make sense for disk cache to get swapped out, would it? – grawity Mar 1 '11 at 13:28
Swapping out the disk cache wouldn't make sense, but the when uTorrent reads data from a network socket, this data will land in the working set of uTorrent and thus might get swapped to the disk. – Michael Mar 2 '11 at 12:34
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up vote 0 down vote

I haven't used uTorrent but for downloads using MSIE, the files are downloaded to a temporary file (usually somewhere in a subdir of C:\WINDOWS) and then moved to the proper location

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