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I have a few questions about the way the blockchain syncs.

I noticed on a couple of posts while researching that it's possible to start the block chain from a certain block. It was suggested that if you had a small quantity of files that contained blocks say 1800000 - 1850000 in the right folder, then the sync would start from that number as opposed to 0.

This seems like a good shortcut if true, can anyone confirm this?

If it is true, I am wondering if there is any benefit to having the full blockchain as opposed to just a fraction. Would hashing speeds be increased?

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  • I can't say for certain, but I've never heard nor seen of this anywhere. Perhaps you can link to the "couple of posts" for more information. My guess is that this is not so.
    – Thomas Jay Rush
    Commented Dec 28, 2016 at 4:13

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I wouldn't recommend using that approach of mocking/downloading the ethereum blockchain ahead of time to skip a full sync. If you want to just sync the bare minimum of the ethereum blockchain, you should run a client in "light mode" where Geth will just download the block headers, but not the entire block, you will have to ask a full node for the block body if you need it.

Another option is fast sync, which is where you do download the full chain, but only take a copy of the state from 64 blocks behind the top of the blockchain, and start doing full validation from then on, getting you up and running quickly.

https://geth.ethereum.org/interface/Command-Line-Options

--syncmode fast | full | light

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