What is a mirror and how it affects network speeds?

Tried to google it about it but i couldn't find anything about it. Most of the fuss is about enabling mirrors and setting up mirror list. even arch wiki about mirrors starts with mirror list. Could anyone please explain me about this?? :worried::worried:
i want to know how it works

Try this -

https://techterms.com/definition/mirror

Like RAID mirroring, but using servers instead, for redundancy.

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Yeah i read this that the streaming platforms use this method to provide seamless service to their customers irrespective of their location. So its like netflix which uses aws has a lot of servers running upfront and few extra servers ready to take over based on the traffic. So these arch mirrors contains all the arch packages and we are asked to configure our mirrorlist to get data from the nearest servers possible right?

Closest/fastest is advised. However, this will depend on your location of course. See this -

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The latest version of the chaotic-aur mirrorlist I have sends you to a randomizer, to spread the loads better between the available mirrors. If your luck is consistently bad using that, then you can, for instance, move your choice to first in the list instead. Closest is often 'best' - but testing will tell you if needed.

Using the random function is a good idea too - if you don't always get something 1/2 a world away!

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