# How to download the Blockchain Faster

When you start an Expanse client, the Expanse blockchain is automatically downloaded. The time it takes to download the Expanse blockchain can vary based on client, client settings, connection speed, and number of peers available. Below are some options for more quickly obtaining the Expanse blockchain.

#### **USING GEXP** <a href="#using-gexp" id="using-gexp"></a>

If you are using the gexp client, there are some things you can do to speed up the time it takes to download the Expanse blockchain. If you choose to use the –fast flag to perform an Expanse fast sync, you will not retain past transaction data.

**Note:** You cannot use this flag after performing all or part of a normal sync operation, meaning you should not have any portion of the Expanse blockchain downloaded before using this command. [See this Expanse Stack.Exchange answer for more information](https://expanse.stackexchange.com/questions/1845/why-isnt-fast-sync-the-default).

Below are some flags to use when you want to sync your client more quickly.

–fast

This flag enables fast syncing through state downloads rather than downloading the full block data. This will also reduce the size of your blockchain dramatically. NOTE: –fast can only be run if you are syncing your blockchain from scratch and only the first time you download the blockchain for security reasons. [See this Reddit post for more information](https://www.reddit.com/r/expanse/comments/3y9316/gexp_fast_option_question/).

–cache=1024

Megabytes of memory allocated to internal caching (min 16MB / database forced). Default is 16MB, so increasing this to 256, 512, 1024 (1GB), or 2048 (2GB) depending on how much RAM your computer has should make a difference.

–jitvm

This flag enables the JIT VM.

Full example command with console:

gexp –fast –cache=1024 –jitvm console

For more discussion on fast syncing and blockchain download times, [see this Reddit post](https://www.reddit.com/r/expanse/comments/46c4ga/lets_benchmark_the_clients/).

#### **EXPORTING/IMPORTING THE BLOCKCHAIN** <a href="#exporting-importing-the-blockchain" id="exporting-importing-the-blockchain"></a>

If you already have a full Expanse node synced, you can export the blockchain data from the fully synced node and import it into your new node. You can accomplish this in gexp by exporting your full node with the command gexp export filename and importing the blockchain into your node using gexp import filename. see [this link](http://docs.expanse.tech/en/latest/network/staticnodes)\ <br>


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