Uploading Downloading

[Elyssa Xey Hexen]

So it seems that uploading always seems to be slower from a personal computer than from a server. What specifically does a server do or contain that allows it to upload at a much faster rate than a personal computer can?

 

[John2k4]

Well servers in general (like Photobucket/Megaupload/Games/etc) have a massive network backbone. Servers need the massive upload speed to be able to push data out to clients as fast as possible, whereas download speed is slightly less of a priority for them.

Personal PC's are different. What you pay for is probably around 5-15MB download and 2-8MB upload (these are complete guesses). Home networking equipment is a lot less powerful than industrial netowrking racks and such. Home users are also affected by traffic load of others around them (neighborhood/city), but servers/companies usually have a direct line to the ISP.

 

[AltF4]

It has to do with the physical hardware of the cabling that's going into your house. Just by the nature of how broadband cable connections work, they're faster in one direction than another. It has nothing to do with the server. (The actual computer at the other end)

DSL connections, for example, do not suffer from this. They're generally about the same in terms of upload/download speed. Though there are many factors going into determining which physical layer is better, this is just one.