Status Bar

The Status bar tracks various things that Newsbin is doing.

Download Speed

Reports the same download speed in two different ways. One is in bits per second (lower case "b") and the other in bytes per second (upper case "B")

Downloaded

Reports amount of data in bytes downloaded in this session.

Queued

Shows total bytes queued in the download list and it counts down as items are downloaded

Time Remaining

Estimates amount of time left to complete downloads based on current download speed.

Free Space Indicator

Shows amount of free space available on the drives where the Data folder is located and the drive where the Download folder is located. The value for the Data folder is the one preceded by Data:, while that for the Download drive is preceded by Download:. These numbers will both be the same if these folders are on the same drive.

Cache

This indicates the amount of chunk cache that is available. Its purpose is to maximize your bandwidth in times of slow disk I/O. If it drops to 0, then your disk I/O can't keep up with your bandwidth. This can happen if you are downloading to an external drive or NAS. It can also happen if you just have crazy high bandwidth, like over 100mbps.

Newsbin uses a "Chunk Cache" which you set with "ChunkCacheSize" in the [Performance] section of the Newsbin Configuration File. The default name is newsbin.nbi. On Usenet, each file is split into many parts (we call them chunks for discussion). Each part of the file is downloaded to a block in the chunk cache. If Newsbin runs out of Chunk Cache, some of the cache is written to disk to make room for new chunks. When Newsbin assembles a file from chunks it checks memory and disk for the chunks. The ChunkCacheSize isn't in bytes, it's the number of blocks of data to store in memory. Each memory block is between 200KB to 1MB in size and varies depending on the size the original poster chose to split up the parts of the file.

When you close Newsbin while downloads are still active, Newsbin will write all the chunks in cache out to disk and then exit. When you start Newsbin again, it'll pick up where it left off without having to re-download all those chunks.

In the case of incomplete files, the chunks for the files remain in memory because the file isn't complete. When new chunks for new files download, these new chunks will push the old chunks out to disk. Normally when a complete file downloads and is assembled, all the memory blocks are returned to the chunk cache for re-use.

Eventually, if Newsbin has enough of the files to repair, it'll assemble and repair these files. If the missing parts are greater then 10% of the download, it probably won't be possible to repair and you should bail on the download. PARS can repair up to about 10% missing data mostly. Keep in mind that your PAR files may also be missing blocks of data.

The ChunkCacheSize is set to 200 by default. If you have a fast connection (over 50mbs) and enough RAM, you can experiment cranking this size up to 500, 800 or even 1000. For slow connections, a large ChunkCacheSize won't really help much. If your disk is a bottleneck and can't keep up with your download speed, the cache will fill up no matter how big you make it.

Notification Messages

This will display a notification message when available.

Selection

This displays information on what is selected in the current list, shown as (# selected / Size of Data selected).

Pause Switch

By clicking this you can pause or resume downloads.

Speed Limit

By clicking this you can turn on the Speed Limit

This is displayed on the far right side and may not be viewable with all information displayed using a resolution width under 1280 pixels.

Status Bar Menu

By right-clicking the status bar, a pop up menu will allow you to select which of the above information is displayed.

V600-StatusBar

From Newsbin

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