NZBGet Tips and Tricks for Improving Speeds

 

Always remember that the most important factor in your Usenet download speeds is your Usenet provider. Unlimited download speeds and high connection counts contribute to speedy downloads. At Tweaknews we provide all you need for a fantastic Usenet experience, if you don’t already have a Tweaknews account you can signup for one here. 

 

NZBget has been designed with flexibility in mind, and it can be installed on anything from a simple Raspberry Pi to a dedicated NAS (network attached storage) system. Due to this range, NABGet has many settings and can be optimized for nearly any device type with some experimentation. There are three main aspects that influence newsreader speed:

• CPU speed - The number of connections, if you have encryption active or not, and  unpacking/par checks are all a drain on CPU processing.

• Available RAM - As with any computer more RAM results in better performance. These issues are primarily cache and buffer settings.

• Hard drive interface - How quickly your hard drive can write to the destination disk can be a prime limiting factor. Running simultaneous operations on your hard drive may impact performance. . 

Reviewing the settings listed below and testing with your setup may improve performance, and download speeds. 

We always suggest creating a backup of your current settings before changing anything. 

CPU related slowdowns

The settings below will assist with CPU related slowdowns. 

Encryption Settings

The Server.Encryption settings can be found in the News Server settings section. This is an on/off setting. Using an encrypted connection to a news server can make a significant impact on performance. If you choose, you can deactivate the server encryption to improve performance. 

More experienced NZBget users may use option Server.Cipher to fine tune their encryption cypher settings. Selecting a different cipher can significantly boost performance. Review the NZBGet article on choosing a cipher for more information.

Connection Settings

The Server.Connections settings can be found in the News Server menu. For your primary servers (Level=0) use as few connections as possible but as many as you need to saturate your internet connection. It is suggested to use 20 at a minimum. If you have a secondary server we set the number of connections on your secondary server to the exact same number of connections that you have your primary server set to.

CrcCheck

CrcCheck, found in the Check and Repair section may be deactivated. Do note that deactivating CrcCheck will make quick par-verification less reliable and occasionally will require a full verification.

Par check

Par check is a CPU intensive process. However there are a few options available. These can all be found within the Check and Repair section. 

1. ParCheck: set to auto. 

2. ParScan: set to auto. 

3. ParQuick: If you require fast par-verification this must be active.

4. ParThreads allows multiple CPU cores to be used simultaneously. A setting of 0 will use all available CPU cores. 

5. ParBuffer: The default memory setting for this is 500 MB but can be adjusted as required.

6. ParPauseQueue: Will prevent downloading and Par checking from happening at the same time.

7. ParTimeLimit places a limit on the amount of time NZBGet attempts to repair a file. 

8. ParRename handles misnamed files. ParRename is highly recommended, especially if unpack is disabled.

Unpack

The UnpackPauseQueue setting, found in the Unpack menu, prevents simultaneous downloading and unpacking. Try this if your slowdowns occur during the unpacking process. 

Download speed limit

Limiting the download speed via the DownloadRate setting, found in the Connection settings, can negatively affect processing speeds.

RAM related slowdowns

Article cache

ArticleCache is found in the Download Queue menu. If option DirectWrite (also in the Download Queue menu) is active, set the article cache to 200 MB. If DirectWrite is disabled a larger article cache is suggested (up to 1 GB).

Write buffer

Your WriteBuffer setting can be found in the Download Queue menu.  If you have a lot of available RAM set it to 1024. If you have limited RAM available set it to 32. 

Hard Drive related slowdowns

Direct write

When the DirectWrite option, found in the Download Queue menu, requires a filesystem that supports “sparse file” support. HFS+ formatted disks (Mac OS) do not support “sparse files” and this setting will need to be deactivated for those operating systems. If deactivated a large article cache must be configured for best performance, see Article Cache above.   

File fragmentation

Adjusting WriteBuffer and ArticleCache options, both found in the Download Queue menu, help minimize file fragmentation and improve post processing speeds.

Drive cache flushing

If you notice slowdowns during queue flushing we suggest deactivating FlushQueue, found in the Download Queue menu. 

Logging

Deactivating or rotating the error logging functions of WriteLog, found in the Logging menu, can reduce processing overhead. 

Par check and unpack

Prevent simultaneous disk access with ParPauseQueue (found in Check and Repair) and UnpackPauseQueue (found in the Unpack) to prevent simultaneous disk access by the downloading, par-checker and unpacker functions. 

Due to the adaptable nature of NZBGet it is suggested to make a backup of your current settings before any adjustments are made.