set maxconns to 1
then connect=5.9.24.81 (and change it back after it's finished)
i have plenty of bandwidth unless some DoS is going on
Hopefully that box is serving the chain from a RAM disk. Bootstrapping a new node from a spinning disk causes a TON of thrashing. SSDs are decent, but DRAM is king.
YES, making a temporary ramdisk and using -datadir makes it sync much faster. This might not be an option for everyone, but for anyone using bitcoind on a heavy duty server, its a no-brainer.