How long does it take to synchronize?

[ThaddeusB]

I downloaded the bitcoin wallet program yesterday.  After 24 hours+ it is still "synchronizing with network".  About how long does this process take these days?

Thanks.

[live627]

Do the math. AFAIK, it says which block it's on vs. the total.

[ThaddeusB]

I believe each block takes longer than the previous one, on average, since it has more history attached to it or something like that.

[Bendur]

You should be able to work out approximately how long is remaining by looking at the stats in the bottom right corner. The reason it takes so long for the final blocks is because these blocks are crammed full of more transactions, as bitcoin has become more popular.

[Stephen Gornick]

I downloaded the bitcoin wallet program yesterday.  After 24 hours+ it is still "synchronizing with network".  About how long does this process take these days?

On slower equipment it could be three days even. 

Having an encrypted filesystem will really slow things down.  Having your computer go to sleep on inactivity will really slow things down. 

There are a couple tricks to speeding it up if starting from scratch (e.g., pull down bootstrap.dat from torrent) but you are probably well past getting any benefit from that.

[Inabra]

I downloaded the bitcoin wallet program yesterday.  After 24 hours+ it is still "synchronizing with network".  About how long does this process take these days?

look at the blocks in the lower right corner of the app.

[mjc]

On my quad processor it took just over 24 hours.  that was a few months ago.  I update every few weeks and each time it takes a few hours, but now Its on an encrypted filesystem.

[BitcoinsAreFreedom]

5 days for me. But I have a really slow connection.

[Nagato]

I believe the main bottleneck is on disk seek/read speeds. As every transaction in the later blocks has to verify inputs from previous blocks in the blockchain, which will not fit on RAM. This causes reads from all over the disk for each transaction. Multiply that with the increased number of transactions in the later blocks and you have slower syncs.

A faster processor should not make a significant difference.

[DannyHamilton]

I downloaded the bitcoin wallet program yesterday.

Did you give any consideration to any of the alternative wallets such as blockchain.info or Electrum?  Were there specific concerns you had that prevented you from using one of them?

[Gabi]

As Danny said, use a lightweight client like MultiBit or Electrum

The standard client isn't exactly for normal users

[SlickTheNick]

I had the original bitcoin running for at least like 2 days, and it would just keep going either ridiculously slow, or just straight up stopping. Had to delete the whole blockchain and start over like twice. Downloaded multibit instead and it was way faster. Still took like almost a day and a half to fully synchronize though..

[ThaddeusB]

Did you give any consideration to any of the alternative wallets such as blockchain.info or Electrum?  Were there specific concerns you had that prevented you from using one of them?

I just downloaded the "normal" wallet because that is what weusecoins.com said to do.

[Gabi]

There, give it a try to Multibit http://multibit.org/

[DannyHamilton]

. . . The standard client . . .

I try to avoid calling it the "standard" client.  What makes it "standard"?  Has some internationally recognized standards committee decreed it so?  Lately, I've been using the phrase "reference client", or just calling it Bitcoin-Qt.  It seems more accurate and avoids a situation that makes it sound like other clients are "non-standard".

[DannyHamilton]

Did you give any consideration to any of the alternative wallets such as blockchain.info or Electrum?  Were there specific concerns you had that prevented you from using one of them?

I just downloaded the "normal" wallet because that is what weusecoins.com said to do.

weusecoins.com is outdated.  It gives too much attention to mining, and not enough attention to alternate clients.  Depending on your specific plans, there can be valid reasons to avoid using some of these alternate clients, but for many people they are a good option.

[Gabi]

True that, i'll call it the reference client from now. I just mean that it's the only one on the "bitcoin website". I would call it too bitcoin qt but it is a bit unclear.

Yup, it's outdated and also the "bitcoin website" showing only the reference client and not lightweight clients isn't exactly ideal. Everything should be renewed, we are no more in 2011!

[ThaddeusB]

Did you give any consideration to any of the alternative wallets such as blockchain.info or Electrum?  Were there specific concerns you had that prevented you from using one of them?

I just downloaded the "normal" wallet because that is what weusecoins.com said to do.

weusecoins.com is outdated.  It gives too much attention to mining, and not enough attention to alternate clients.  Depending on your specific plans, there can be valid reasons to avoid using some of these alternate clients, but for many people they are a good option.

Yes, I had noticed the website seemed dated - there are dead links, for example.  Is there a better "startup guide".  I've read some stuff on the wiki, but it is hard to know what is up-to-date, what is important, etc.