Quote from: kevin08 on January 28, 2016, 11:42:15 PM

Quote from: cr1776 on January 28, 2016, 06:34:11 PM

Quote from: DumbFruit on January 28, 2016, 06:12:36 PM

Quote from: cr1776 on January 28, 2016, 03:42:37 PM

Quote from: mackminer on January 28, 2016, 03:12:06 PM

Quote from: shorena on January 28, 2016, 02:31:44 PM

Quote from: mackminer on January 28, 2016, 02:24:00 PM

I want to use an external drive because my ssd has limited space.

Thanks.

the bootstrap.dat goes in the -datadir= folder. With newer version using the bootstrap.dat is only useful under certain conditions, if you have not yet downloaded it, you can just skip it.

Can you clarify what you mean? I'm using the most current client bitcoin-qt 32bit and on opening it's showing 6 years behind.....

Christ I can't believe bitcoin has been around that long now....

What he means is that bootstrap.dat has not been useful since bitcoin 0.10.x and up due to headers first sync. Consequently, it is often in fact slower to use the .dat file compared to just connecting to the bitcoin network.

From what I read it's faster to just download with the client than to download the bootstrap.dat separately, but surely it's faster to use bootstrap.dat if you already have it, right? Maybe I'll give it a try later and see how it goes.

Maybe, it could be just about the same if the bottleneck is your CPU or memory. :-)

If you are on a metered connection the savings in the cost of bandwidth might make using a bootstrap.dat downloaded elsewhere preferable. Downloading a bootstrap.dat on a free connection at work or elsewhere could be the only viable option for those with limited bandwidth at home.

Good point. For this use case, that is one option.