Is there a way to track block synchronization progress in geth? [duplicate]

Question

I just started up geth after importing my presale wallet. I'm getting a lot of block import messages like this:

I0305 17:40:03.815435   10833 blockchain.go:1251] imported 256 block(s) (0 queued 0 ignored) including 1162 txs in 3.915381827s. #1083988 [3ff3cc37 / 5db2cea7]
I0305 17:40:08.434452   10833 blockchain.go:1251] imported 256 block(s) (0 queued 0 ignored) including 1350 txs in 4.618004564s. #1084244 [55d6cbb2 / 722f56a4]
I0305 17:40:12.582012   10833 blockchain.go:1251] imported 256 block(s) (0 queued 0 ignored) including 1274 txs in 4.146564747s. #1084500 [fe0f2e27 / ca63792c]
I0305 17:40:15.234566   10833 blockchain.go:1251] imported 256 block(s) (0 queued 0 ignored) including 1262 txs in 2.645272129s. #1084756 [03653029 / 761d29e0]

I assume this means that my client is still downloading the blockchain. Is there a way I can tell how much longer this is going to take and how much space it will take on my machine? Is anything done to conserve space such as block compression and/or digesting?

Answer 1

Variables such as your network speed, the number of transactions in a block, etc... can all effect that. As a comparison, my local copy of the blockchain is roughly around 10Gb

As for how long it could take to download the blockchain, you can at least gauge how many blocks you are behind by finding the current block via an online block explorer and comparing that to the latest block you've downloaded.

You can see the latest block you've downloaded via the terminal. Look for the number with the # sign in front of it e.g. #1105979. You'll know you're caught up when you start seeing faster downloads that usually say imported 1 block(s)