The documentation implies that this is always a short-lived state. However, if you are doing a new initial sync, the node is in STARTUP2 for the entire time that it takes to transfer the data and do the initial set of index builds. This can take many hours (or days). Thus, it seems misleading to say that: "Members are in the STARTUP2 state for a short period of time before entering the RECOVERING state. "

http://docs.mongodb.org/manual/reference/replica-states/#replstate.STARTUP2