Why would it be too much ? You only have to do this once.
Initial wallet sync takes toooooo long
Hi all,
I was able to find some threads with users complaining about the initial wallet sync taking very long but I did not find any authoritative answer to this so I decided to post it here. I am now syncing on a maschine with no SSD hard disk, after 10 hours 6 GB have been downloaded. The performance monitor shows average write speeds of 2MB/s for the monerod daemon and a 99 percent disk utilization. This means, that the initial sync is not as easy as downloading some data (because 10 hours * 60 * 60 * 2 MB = 70 GB, but only 6 GB are written) and that the disk is the limiting factor here.
Are there any plans to speed up the inial sync somehow? In general, I do not like the idea of using a remote node. I also think that the painful process of the initial sync can discourage new users from using Monero.
Thanks for your comments.
Ok, so after not being able to sync for 16 hours on my fairly new laptop, I gave up. I made a test with a high-end Xeon E7 with tens of CPU cores, a hardware disk controller and 1Gb/s internet connection, and it took 12 hours to sync (size of the database is 22 GB). This leads to the conclusion, that an average laptop or even a mobile user who decides to check the balance with maximum privacy - i.e. by running a full node, has no chance. I like the idea and technology behind Monero, but it seems that (at least for now) it is not suitable for average users or devices, which is bad news. I also don't see any ongoing work or plans in the roadmap regarding this issue.