It's a standard zip compressed bootstrap.dat file, combining all blk*.dat files out of the blocks directory.

Maybe we should discuss adding a zip level compression (or better suitable) algorithm to the Bitcoin-Qt client to reduce the amout of data needed to be transferred to update the block chain.

stop talking out of ur ass, im getting speeds up to 5mb/s with the torrent, i can't get anything near this with the client. This has been a huge time saver for me.

quote author=knightdk link=topic=145386.msg13357972#msg13357972 date=1451088033]
quote author=hamiltino link=topic=145386.msg13357882#msg13357882 date=1451086860]
quote author=knightdk link=topic=145386.msg13272697#msg13272697 date=1450322869]
quote author=PatrickMacH link=topic=145386.msg13272577#msg13272577 date=1450321761]
It's a standard zip compressed bootstrap.dat file, combining all blk*.dat files out of the blocks directory.
/quote]
The actual bootstrap.dat is not compressed. The one you are downloading is, but it isn't the official one that was maintained by jgarzik.

quote author=PatrickMacH link=topic=145386.msg13272577#msg13272577 date=1450321761]
Maybe we should discuss adding a zip level compression (or better suitable) algorithm to the Bitcoin-Qt client to reduce the amout of data needed to be transferred to update the block chain.
/quote]
There is talk on the mailing list about block compression and ways to speed up syncing, but I don't think that any of it will be coming in the next release. It either isn't ready or there isn't any particular need for it. Using the actual bootstrap.dat (not the one that you used) is not actually faster than simply letting it sync.
/quote]

stop talking out of ur ass, im getting speeds up to 5mb/s with the torrent, i can't get anything near this with the client. This has been a huge time saver for me.
/quote]
I'm not talking out of my ass. From my experience it has been faster to let the client (version 0.10+) sync by itself than it is to download the bootstrap.dat and to import that.
/quote]

This just makes no sense, since torrent clients download at full ISP speed, while the btc server is subject to several bottlenecks.

I guess it depends on your location and connection speeds. I still think the torrent is useful for some, not all. It's also nice to have a single file that i can use whenever i need to quickly bootstrap my client. Also when downloading the blockchain with the client i get corrupt database error's all the time, forcing me to constantly reindex the blockchain... what gives?

Is there a way that I can install an old verstion of bitcoin core.
Import the torrent file into that and then update the software to the latest version.

Would this work better to syncronise to the network, as I have been told that, when switching between versions, the initial blockchain import is not required? Have I got this correct?

Once the old software is installed, and the blockchain downloaded. I can then update it to the new wallet!
It will take much less time and there is no need to re syncronise the blockchain after this is done with the newer version. It will just runn the veryify blocks process.

Newer software should be able to sync faster than downloading and verifying the torrent will on an older client.

However, if you insist on installing an old client and upgrading, here is a copy of 0.9.4 that I built and uploaded: https://github.com/achow101/bitcoin/releases/tag/v0.9.4

HDD is still bottleneck, my system shows 10-20MB of data written every block synced...

Let me share my story.

I have a small NAS, used also as set-top box to my TV. It runs debian. I decided to give the Bitcoin a try, and set up a node - I have plenty of space there, and this box is used sporadically.

I downloaded fresh version of Bitcoin (at that moment, 0.11.02), and started downloading the blocks normally. I have a decent speed to the internet.

I took over a month to download the whole blockchain, and I have logs to prove it. I have monitored its progress - bitcoind used just a small bandwith, but always 100% of my CPU, on the NAS. It os not very powerful CPU, I admit, so I wasn't surprised. It was the computation that caused the blockchain to load slowly.

When it finished, and started running "normally", the CPU consumption was about 20-40%. It was quite expected. But I decided to give the torrent a try, just for sake of comparison.

The torrent I took from the above linked thread. The torrent downloaded on the same box, with the same CPU and network,  in about 7 hours. Then, I needed to download missing blocks - it took about 36 hours. In total - 42 hours.

In both cases the blockchain is about 62 GB big. The MD5 of the files are different, though.

Now my points:

 - there are computers with slower CPU. Keep this in mind. My case was extreme, but it's just proof, that CPU is also very important during downloading the blockchain, and people having problems with slow downloads perhaps have probelem with CPU, not network.
 - precomputation is just reasonable. Why everyone should compute the same blocks every time they start a new node?
 - if you prepare "certified" blockchain (can be GPG signed, etc.), you will show the people that you CARE about them, and about their time, and freedom of choice of downloading method. This is important for people that are hesitating about running a bitcoin daemon.

Thanks for reading.