+1. I posted about this a few weeks ago as well thinking it was a download or ISP problem on my end but couldn't get at the root cause.
And yes, the Illinois server fails the most on my testing as well. I noticed this after switching pacman to using wget as downloader because wget shows more detail on download errors.
I wish we (ARM) had a mirror status like x86 Arch have, something like:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '# curl -s "https://www.archlinux.org/mirrorlist/?country=US&protocol=http&ip_version=4&use_mirror_status=on" | sed -e 's/^#Server/Server/' -e '/^#/d' | rankmirrors -n 5 -')
Instead, all I've found that we (ARM) can do it rank the default ARM mirror list, like below:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', '# rankmirrors -n 5 /etc/pacman.d/mirrorlist > fast-mirrorlist')
The problem with that ^ is the Illinois server is consistently ranked just below the GeoIP mirror. The result of the above command:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'Server = http://mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://il.us.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://fl.us.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://nj.us.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo')
So I'm now commenting both the Illinois and GeoIP servers out of my mirrorlist.
If you check more of the mirrors, so non-US, then it's actually interesting how slow some of the US servers are. Another rankmirror output that includes German servers alongside US:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_code('', 'Server = http://ca.us.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://de.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://de3.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://de4.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://de5.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://dk.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://eu.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://fl.us.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo
Server = http://nj.us.mirror.archlinuxarm.org/$arch/$repo')
I trust the Germans,
so have switched to their servers. Vielen Dank aus Amerika!