Slow restoration question

Hello list,

what is the quickest way of dumping a DB and restoring it? I have done a

"pg_dump -D database | split --line-bytes 1546m part"

Restoration as

"cat part* | psql database 2> errors 1>/dev/null"

all dumpfiles total about 17Gb. It has been running for 50ish hrs and up
to about the fourth file (5-6 ish Gb) and this is on a raid 5 server.

A while back I did something similar for a table with where I put all
the insert statements in one begin/end/commit block, this slowed down
the restoration process. Will the same problem [slow restoration] occur
if there is no BEGIN and END block? I assume the reason for slow inserts
in this instance is that it allows for rollback, if this is the case
can I turn this off?

Thanks in advance
Eric Lam