My torrent client downloads files to internal SSD. When I’m low on storage (often), I remove some torrents from qbittorrent and move files to external HDD. It means I can’t seed them anymore.
I want to be able to seed HDD torrents periodically. What workflow can I employ? I can think of:
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Use 2 different torrent clients. One with “external” torrents only. It will never be launched when external HDD is not plugged in, therefore old torrents will not be marked as “missing files” and will not require verification every now and then;
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Use single torrent client which can accept CLI commands to start/stop specific torrents. Before detaching external HDD I will run a script to stop all external torrents. I will resume them back again only when HDD is accessible.
Any other ideas?


You don’t need to but #1 could be a bit easier if you prefer multiple torrent clients/instances for organization. qBittorrent / Deluge can run multiple instances so you could have like qBittorrent “A” instance pointing to your internal SSD and qBittorrent “B” instance pointing to your external HDD. That’s just a quick example but I’m sure Transmission and other torrent clients can do the same.
The only tricky bit with multiple torrent clients is that they’d each need their own incoming connection port if you intend to be fully connectable (port forwarded). That may not be feasible if you’re using a VPN that only gives you 1 port forward but otherwise it’s doable, depends on your setup.
Seems reasonable, I didn’t thought about port conflict. But in this scenario not running both clients at the same time also is an acceptable solution.