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by yodsanklai 3241 days ago
> Chunks don't span files. Each file is validated by the hash of its merkle tree. This is the biggest user-visible change, since it means you can download one file without downloading others.

But can't you already download one file? I suppose if a chunk spans two files, you may get a few extra KB of another file you don't want, but it's not noticeable from a user perspective.
2 comments
lmm 3240 days ago
With a lot of clients you'll end up with bogus files on disk as the neighbours of the file you wanted - the client has to download the whole chunk and has to be able to validate its checksum, so it has to put it on disk somewhere. Not a huge problem, but annoying.
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daurnimator 3241 days ago
more than a few KB: can be a few MB. It's especially significant if you have a torrent full of text files, and want a subset.
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