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Is there any way, commonly known or purely theoretical, to have a single link to a single file -- say, a typical download file on your regular browser -- but split the transfer itself into multiple parts from the client side?

Essentially, I want to know if it's possible for a computer to split a single network file transfer into two (or more) so that if the computer has multiple network cards (assuming that ISP isn't causing bottleneck), they can effectively download the file at twice the rate. Assume that the download source isn't doing anything to monitor this probably-angering behavior.

lululoo
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  • Interesting question. Curious to see an answer (unfortunately I've no idea personally). – Mansfield May 01 '12 at 02:32
  • You would need more than just multiple network cards. You would need multiple distinct network *paths* to the peer for this to have much effect. – user207421 May 01 '12 at 08:21

1 Answers1

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FTP supports this via the REST command: http://www.ipswitch.com/support/ws_ftp-server/guide/v5/a_ftpref3.html#10694

Clients usually do feature detection on the FTP server to see if it supports this by issuing the FEAT command.

HTTP also supports this via the Range request header: http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec14.html#sec14.35

My favourite client that can do above is aria2: http://aria2.sourceforge.net/

Ja͢ck
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