Network Synchronization

[Inkoin]

Downloaded Bitcoin latest version, 0.7.0 beta

Its taking an awful lot of time to synchronize with the network and download the whole block chain.

Any reasons for this? Or this is normal when installing for the first time?

Having downloaded the software in my PC, does it automatically store the wallet.dat in the hard disk, or is there a way for it never to store the wallet.dat in the hard disk and only in a removable drive?

Thank you

[odolvlobo]

If you want to put your wallet on a removable drive so that you can access it from multiple computers, then you could instead set up an online wallet. There are wallets (including online wallets) that don't require you to download and validate the entire block chain.

This is a good article about wallets: http://bitcoinmagazine.net/bitcoin-wallet-options/