First, this needs to be fixed. I download blocks for at least 8 hours now, and it’s still not done. I know the problem of having to download the entire block chain is working, but I feel it’s already out of hand. Setting up an application should take something that you would measure in minutes, not hours or days. (After spending the whole night, it’s now 4:15 am, I’d estimate the set-up time to be two Thursday.)
Also a great deal can be downloaded as is. It’s far from using my maximum download speed, and being connected to one peer is as fast as being connected to 8+ (yup, also tried sending ports).
Now, ontopic.
Is it normal for blockchain downloads to go slower, the further you progress? The first half (out of 194.000) went in the vicinity of an eye, after which it became smaller and less rapid. Now that there are 20.000 blocks left, bursts increase, but there can easily be 20 seconds of inactivity and when it bursts it’s like 10 blocks.
Is this normal behavior? And also, why doesn’t the number of connections make any difference to the speed at all? If it works like Bittorrent, which some describe to work as, it should go faster with more people who can upload to you (more contacts).
I’ve Googled, but all I’ve found is that it takes a couple of hours and could get stuck. It’s not stuck and takes as long as people describe it to be, but I wonder if it’s normal that it’s getting slower and slower, and why it’s not saturating my download capacity (like BitTorrent) no matter how many connections.
Thank you