It took me 3 weeks to get to just over 30%. Then I tried to carry on loading tonight and when it started up it said there was an error with the data.
The only options it gave were Abort or Reload. Abort stopped the Bitcoin Core program. I tried rerunning the program a few times but it did the same thing. When I clicked reload it loaded up and has gone back to 0%.
Surely there is a better way. Has anyone tried sharing the data on external HD with people locally?
I've already had some experience with copied Bitcoin data directories. With my downloads speed (~20Mbit/s), it takes about 24-48 hours to download the entire blockchain, but when I just copy-paste the blocks and chainstate folder it only takes an average of 8 hours to duplicate it (I used cat-6 ethernet connection).
Once a new Bitcoin core installation is completed, I only run the Bitcoin-Qt for a few minutes to start sync, get a few blocks and just get bitcoin's data directory created, then I shut it down and deletes the blocks and chainstate folder in bitcoin's data directory. For the missing folders, I copy the blocks and chainstate folder from my other PC which runs a full node and paste it to bitcoin's data directory in a new node (laptop).
If you want to copy-paste the wallet.dat file too, you should start the bitcoin core with -rescan option, and when doing copy-paste things make sure the bitcoin core in both nodes has been shutdown.
Useful tips, thanks for sharing.