We next test our system's ability to download large files.  We download a 30MB file with 100 peers, using the same settings as the above, and then download the same file, using BitTorrent, with similar settings.  Block size is set to 256K for both systems.  Peers enter the system at an average of 1/s, and both protocols' origin servers are rate limited to 256KB/s.  With both systems, linger time is set to 0s.  The expected result is that the two fare similarly.  It turned out that a few peers download faster with our system, but most download faster with BitTorrent (Table~\ref{fig:yanc_vs_bt}).  Ours had a slower median than BitTorrent (847s to 148s), though BitTorrent was worse for the 99th percentile (2786s to 847s).  One reason for the difference is that the BitTorrent's seed (origin server) limits the number of outgoing connections it will entertain to 7 (Apache--our server--does too, but to 256).  This limit enables BitTorrent to propagate blocks more quickly to peers, who then spread the blocks among the other peers.  BitTorrent seeds also favor peers who have higher download speeds, which helps speed propagation of blocks.  For our test BitTorrent uses a dedicated tracker, which also made peer rendezvous quicker than using our DHT.  These differences combined allow it to respond to a flash crowd such as this one better.  One thing to note is how close the relative download percentiles are. The difference between 25th and 75th percentiles of our system is about 150s, or 5\% of the 75th percentile's time.  The difference between the 25th and 75th percentiles of BitTorrent is 24s, or about 7\%.  These numbers being close means that once a few of the peers have downloaded the file, it doesn't take (relatively) long in either system for the rest of the peers to complete the download (Fig.~\ref{fig:yanc_30mb_cdf}).  Very few peers receive more than 50\% of the file from the origin (2\%). a b c d e f g hi j k l  m n o p 