Legit Mods and Ends Reviews

Building a BitTorrent Rig with the Zotac ZBOX Nano Plus

Manufacturer: Zotac
Product: ZBOX Nano VD01 Plus
Date: Tue, Dec 20, 2011 - 12:00 AM
Written By: Ken Brown -
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Configuring the BitTorrent Search

Vuze Search Engine Install
Now that we have configured Vuze and sorted out any port forwarding issues, we are ready to search the net for content.  For many, even this process is not as straightforward as it should be.

In the old days, you download Vuze and it would come with a multitude of search engines that helped you find any file you were looking for.  Because P2P has been on the knife's edge of being legal in most countries around the world, Vuze like many other companies that deal in P2P software are very careful about the services they provide.  In order to shield themselves legally, Vuze doesn’t provide direct access to search engines that may link to sites where copyright-protected software or multimedia exists. 

Lucky for us, however, they do not prevent users from making this choice on their own. What we need to do is select and install the search engines that we want to use.  To do this, you need to use your favorite browser and search engine (ie. Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) and do a search for “Search Engine Templates for Vuze”.  You should find a bunch of search template torrents that you can download. 

If you don’t want to do all that, I’ve placed my favorite search engines in a file here that you can download.

Once you have the downloaded search engines on your drive, you can simply click on each of the ones you wish to use. Vuze will ask you to confirm your decision and after that, you will be ready to search the net for your content. 

BitTorrent Search Results

Depending on what you are looking for BTJunkie and Kickass Torrents are good places to start.  In fact, most torrent sites have their own search engine template packages available for easy download.

There are many “Private” search engines that are out there as well.  The advantages of private torrent tracking sites is that each member who uses the site is scrutinized which provides for a better level of security for the users.  There are tons of these private sites targeted to a variety of users.  Frankly, many people choose this method of gathering content.

Most torrent sites have search engine template packages readily available- some even go so far as to place a link for them on their home page. Even better yet, you can simply use some of the links provided by others in this very thread, although, if you want a specific search engine, I might still suggest googling the engine name, plus the word "template," just to make sure you have the exact ones that best suit your needs.


Final Thoughts:

Zotac ZBOX Nano BitTorrent

We went into this article wanting to give our readers a general, high-level tutorial of how to set up and manage a BitTorrent client such as Vuze.  For those who have never tried BitTorrenting, the process can seem a little confusing and dangerous and hopefully this quick guide gives a better sense of the steps you need to take to at least get everything up and running and secure.

Vuze Interface

The BitTorrent client we built was centered around the Zotac ZBOX Nano PC and we found this platform to be rock solid in everything that we did for this project.  From the Windows 7-64-bit install, to the various software associated with security and torrenting, the VIA Nano X2 processor was more than enough to support this project.

Real-world transfer speeds and usage with the Zotac ZBOX Nano were as good as we were getting with any of our other BitTorrent rigs and clients.  The trickiest thing about the setup was finding the right ports to use for optimum throughput and security. 

ZBOX Nano

For those looking to buy a Home Theater PC that does more than just surf the net, you really should look at Zotac's catalog of mini-PCs.  Most of Zotac's mini-PCs start around $240 for fully outfitted palm-PC which make it quite tempting - even for those who like to build their own machines. There are a whole host of machines you can look at with AMD and Intel processors in many different flavors. 

After using it as a Bittorrent workhorse and media streamer, we found that the VIA X2 Nano processor was enough for all of our applications - in fact, when viewing HD movies or networking with other machines, our ZBOX worked like a champ!  We really like the way you can basically go from the box to full usage with minimal effort so we really recommend getting the "All-in-one" fully configured PC with hard drive and memory. With the flooding in Thailand that happened this Fall, hard drive prices are projected to go up making the packages that Zotac is offering a very good bargain!

ZBOX Nano


Our VIA-powered ZBOX Nano VD01 PLUS [ZBOXNANO-VD01-PLUS-U] has an MSRP of $273 and is available right now, but if you do some searching, you can find it for as low as $249 and Zotac gives you a 1-year standard warranty. 

We are very confident that if you just follow the above steps, you will be less frustrated with the overall process of configuring a solid BitTorrent client.  Good luck in your build!!


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Review Index
Page 1 - Building a BitTorrent Machine with Zotac’s ZBOX Nano Plus
Page 2 - Inside the Zotac ZBOX Nano Plus
Page 3 - Benchmarks of the Zotac ZBOX Nano
Page 4 - Building a BitTorrent Machine – Installing the Software
Page 5 - Vuze BitTorrent Software
Page 6 - Port Forwarding and Router Settings
Page 7 - Configuring the BitTorrent Search