Segmented file-transfer (also known as multisource file-transfer or swarming file-transfer) is the coordinated transmission of a computer file sourced from multiple servers to a single destination.

However Segmented Downloading is defined as: This is not to be confused with segmented downloading, which allows a client to download segments of a file simultaneously from multiple servers. Many servers, however, implement a maximum number of simultaneous connections per client in order to mitigate this. Because in normal networking situations all individual connections are treated equally, rather than actual file transfers, multiple connections yields an advantage on saturated links over simple connections, both in terms of total bandwidth allocation and resilience.

The reason for doing so is to circumvent server side limitations of bandwidth per connection. Download acceleration, also known as multipart download, is a term for the method employed by software such as download managers to download a single file by splitting it in segments and using several simultaneous connections to download these segments from a single server.

Internet download accelerator