How long to download Ethereum Blockchain?

[BTCGambler]

So I downloaded the Ethereum-Wallet(MIST) because I want to get into altcoins as well as Bitcoin.

When I started the Wallet, it started downloading the Ethereum Blockchain. This is more then
24h ago at it seems the closer I get to finish downloading the whole thing the slower the download
gets.

I mean it's getting ridiciulous with this massive blockchain downloads and the wiaitng time,
especially because I download around 15GB so far. 15GB I could download in less than an hour
so why does this take so long with these blockchains I thought its like a p2p download,

Shouldn't it be pretty fast?


And o another note the number of total Blocks seem to be changing while downloading. I wouldn't
have been surprised if it would grow bigger because of more transactions in the blockchain etc.

but it is jumping frim 1,480,000ish to 1,580,000ish Blocks... back and forth...

I'm relatively new to the cryptocoin-world so forgive me if some of these questions seem ignorant or naive.

Thanks!
BTC Gambler

[Minecache]

A few hours for me. But I did that a few months ago now.

[Someone47]

It takes very very long time. very bad* must wait hours*: is not future.

i am in the hopes some thing comes back from the future for betterment of online cryptographic currency!   ✧٩(•́⌄•́๑)

[bathrobehero]

So I downloaded the Ethereum-Wallet(MIST) because I want to get into altcoins as well as Bitcoin.

When I started the Wallet, it started downloading the Ethereum Blockchain. This is more then
24h ago at it seems the closer I get to finish downloading the whole thing the slower the download
gets.

I mean it's getting ridiciulous with this massive blockchain downloads and the wiaitng time,
especially because I download around 15GB so far. 15GB I could download in less than an hour
so why does this take so long with these blockchains I thought its like a p2p download,

Shouldn't it be pretty fast?


And o another note the number of total Blocks seem to be changing while downloading. I wouldn't
have been surprised if it would grow bigger because of more transactions in the blockchain etc.

but it is jumping frim 1,480,000ish to 1,580,000ish Blocks... back and forth...

I'm relatively new to the cryptocoin-world so forgive me if some of these questions seem ignorant or naive.

Thanks!
BTC Gambler

Not sure why that is, mine only took a few hours with a 3570k, SSD and 80 Mbps down.

My fully synced wallet (in Roaming\Ethereum) is barely over 12 GB so I guess your wallet is not fast syncing like mine does for some reason.

Edit: This might be helpful but I haven't tried it so backup your wallet if it's not empty: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/603/help-with-very-slow-mist-sync

[vlom]

at the moment i synch my wallet every day.  because the download is really slow. otherwise i could miss a sell option because i am out of synch. i use Ethereum-Wallet 0.7.3 on OSX.

btw: anybody knows where the blockchain is stored on OS X? thank you.

[bathrobehero]

at the moment i synch my wallet every day.  because the download is really slow. otherwise i could miss a sell option because i am out of synch. i use Ethereum-Wallet 0.7.3 on OSX.

btw: anybody knows where the blockchain is stored on OS X? thank you.

Default datadir locations:
– Mac: ~/Library/Ethereum
– Linux: ~/.ethereum
– Windows: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Ethereum

[BTCGambler]

I'm not gonna restart it now after it ran for 28h an is at arround 90%...
I just hope the last 10% wont take me another 28h.

thanks for your input guys. I appreciate it

[BTCGambler]

Finally, after 36h...............

[bathrobehero]

That's tough. What kind of CPU/internet connection do you have?

[stoat]

Finally, after 36h...............

Use linux and latest wallet version.  Takes about 2 hours

[BTCGambler]

Finally, after 36h...............

Use linux and latest wallet version.  Takes about 2 hours

no it doesnt... all this happened on a linux mint, on a SSD drive, latest wallet version and 50Mb/s internet.......

[Laniakea]

It takes a long time. Downloading just about any Blockchain feels like the Internet in 1999 on a 56 Kbps modem to me.

[BTCGambler]

That's tough. What kind of CPU/internet connection do you have?

that was a typo with the 50Mb/s in the post above.

It is an AMD 6 core, don't know the exact model atm, look it up later at home.... and internet is 20MB/s....

[postcd]

Downloading it last 4 days and im roughly in the middle. 100% HDD usage. 5400 RPM HDD and internet capable 3MB/s download ...
I think this is VERY VERY BAD.

what about renting
a) some computing server from Amazon
b) 100GB SSD VPS with 1gbit internet. But im unsure if Linux blocks would be compatible with Windows.

[Fuserleer]

I actually did this just the other day as I was comparing sync times between the various cryptos and eMunie.

Eth needs a fast hard drive more than anything else, then RAM, then CPU....also you should use Parity, the differences between the various client flavors is extreme to say the least.  Geth is 4-5x slower than Parity.

If you are using Parity, have a semi-decent SSD, 4GB+ of free memory available and a run of the mill 4 core Intel, expect about 2 hours per million blocks.  If you are using a platter drive, double it.

[bbc.reporter]

Sometimes it is hard to imagine how some of these platforms will become "mainstream" as they advertise. Do the development teams of each really believe their platforms will become really useful for the real world? How will they overcome the technical difficulties? To use Ethereum as an example it is only around 1 or 2 years and yet the blockchain is already over 15gb. There isn't even 1 million users in the system yet doing 100's of thousands of transactions per minute yet.

Sometimes it feels like the are just playing around and being naive about what they believe.

[jmpFCE2]

Sometimes it is hard to imagine how some of these platforms will become "mainstream" as they advertise. Do the development teams of each really believe their platforms will become really useful for the real world? How will they overcome the technical difficulties? To use Ethereum as an example it is only around 1 or 2 years and yet the blockchain is already over 15gb. There isn't even 1 million users in the system yet doing 100's of thousands of transactions per minute yet.

Sometimes it feels like the are just playing around and being naive about what they believe.

atleast ETH actually has transactions

XMR and many others just sit there ;0

[Doom4535]

Same boat here, I'm back to the original 4gb of ram on my mac till I can rma my other sticks.  I let it run overnight and I came back to 40 GB of swap according to the activity monitor... I've now launched with the command line and am trying to limit the cache size... not quite sure if it is working though, swap is slowly growing... I was also under the impression that the --fast option was effectively a p2p download and reduced the verification.  This part of the setup is definitely not good, I may try to restore an old setup from a backup before my reinstall to see if I can get the sync to not be as memory intensive.  For ethereum they will need to develop some sort of distributed pruning if they want to have the blockchain companies (companies pay for the storage that they use, otherwise they are pruned) because these companies will lead to extra bloat... that and ram prices aren't dropping as fast as storage prices so there needs to be some changes in that department.

[Doom4535]

so, I navigated to where geth (CLI interface) and manually ran it with this:

Code:

./geth --fast --cache=256

and it finished syncing after a few hours, this was with a fast (100+ Mbps network and an ssd), but non of the run away memory issues I was facing with the main client when trying to do the initial sync.  You could use a larger cache and see if it speeds it up more (value is in MB).

[mining1]

Sometimes it is hard to imagine how some of these platforms will become "mainstream" as they advertise. Do the development teams of each really believe their platforms will become really useful for the real world? How will they overcome the technical difficulties? To use Ethereum as an example it is only around 1 or 2 years and yet the blockchain is already over 15gb. There isn't even 1 million users in the system yet doing 100's of thousands of transactions per minute yet.

Sometimes it feels like the are just playing around and being naive about what they believe.

Lol, 15GB would be a problem in 2000s, not 2016. 1TB hdd costs 50 euro. Do you really believe people that are going to use blockchain technology stick with computers worth 100$ each ? 4k bluray movies have 40GB + .
In the meantime, one of the many latest news https://consensys.net/static/BlockApps-Minsheng-Consensys.pdf . So i wonder, what are these giant companies that are actively working on ethereum do about it's size, that's definitely a problem, NOT.
Just read the ethereum latest news, at this rate price growth will be sustained by usage in 1 to 2 years, there's just too many news.