P2P servers - what exactly are they?

VPN
1

NordVPN offers P2P servers as server type. At the same time, NordVPN does not offer port forwarding. P2P such as torrenting needs port forwarding.

So, what exactly is a P2P server if it does not do port forwarding?

2

Nord’s p2p servers are supposedly dedicated to and optimized for peer-to-peer/torrent traffic. My understanding is that if you don’t choose a p2p server initially, and Nord detect’s your traffic is consistent with p2p, then they may re-route your traffic through a p2p server anyway. Since your re-routed traffic would first go to the original non-p2p server and then to the p2p server chosen by Nord, your speeds will take a some sort of a hit. By how much could be quite variable.

If the p2p server and the non-p2p server are both in the same datacenter, then the hit will be negligible. But if Nord’s traffic shaping system shows a p2p server in another location with low utilization (perhaps in another country with poor peering to the first server), then the re-routing penalty could be significant. That’s why Nord recommends that choosing a p2p server from the beginning is the better way to go.

Again, this is my understanding of how things work. So if I’m wrong, someone please correct me.

As you’re aware, Nord doesn’t offer port forwarding through any of its vpn servers. So from that perspective, using a p2p server or some other type is irrelevant.

3

There are many more services that use P2P, such as VoIP and such. As for torrenting, port forwarding is not required and while it would allow you to connect to more peers, you would still be able to use it while connected to Nord’s P2P servers.

4

Torrent protocol will reward peers that upload a lot with higher download bandwidth.

So if a lot of NordVPN users upload over the P2P servers, this will ultimately result in faster downloads for you. Win win.

5

Are you sure that the torrent protocol favors peers that upload more?

6

I am positive. Read further

7

I don’t think this is correct in general. Maybe as a simplification some clients have such implementation but this is not in the BitTorrent protocol.