Bitcoin Forum

In the C:\Users\Matthew\AppData\Roaming\Bitcoin folder it's taking up 5.6gb

Is it ok to send all my coins to MtGox then delete this folder and keep mining?

I'm low on space (It's an SSD drive so 5.6gb is big to me)


Thanks and Merry Christmas

You may be required to verify your account with them.  Do you have a problem with sending your ID and utility statement to them?

There is also counterparty risk.   You are trusting that their methods are secure and that there won't be an "E-Gold moment" (where the authorities perform a raid and confiscate the equipment and data.).   Do I think that will happen?  Probably not in the next year or so.  Do I store more than I plan to trade with an exchange?  Nope.

If you still decide to go with storing coins at an E-Wallet provider like Mt. Gox, please make sure to use multi-factor authentication (2FA).  Mt. Gox supports Yubikey and Google Authenticator (OTP) 2FA methods.

Would you consider an SPV (Simplified Payment Verification) client?  MultiBit does not store the full blockchain yet provides much of the same capability as the Bitcoin.org client.  (The main thing that is lacking is an encrypted wallet, but that is being worked on).

There is also a hybrid E-Wallet provider, Blockchain.info/wallet.
 - http://www.Blockchain.info/wallet

why not just move the data files to a normal drive on the system. that is what is taking the space. that way you keep your the bitcoin client and wallet on your computer just like now.

use the "-datadir=<dir>" switch.

see here

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Running_Bitcoin

don't use mtgox, because they randomly freeze accounts until you can provide photo id. don't use online wallets either. they are easier to use, but you lose complete control of your bitcoins. it's just better to use electrum.

Why not get the script from bitaddress.org and make paper wallet(s)? You can print out two copies and keep them in two safe separate locations. You can easily add to these addresses as needed, and when you need to spend, just import to mtgox, blockchain.info, or similar services that you can trust with the amounts involved.

just instal a copy of electrum in another folder, and transfer your coins to that address.  Once done, you can delete your overly large files.  Why did it get so large?

Blockchain .dat files are now getting near 6GB total...

Whew ! Glad its not just me. lol

I thought the blockchain was supposed to be <4gb. Whats up with that !?

That was several months ago.  It grows quickly because there are thirty to fifty thousand transactions each day and the blocks are stored in raw form (not optimized).
 - http://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size

This space issue will be reduced to some degree with Bitcoin v0.8 but more importantly the performance will be much faster such that you feel you need to have the Bitcoin data on your SSD drive.
 - datadir= 
should help you in the meantime.

Hio Stephen

That chart says the blockchain is still less than 4gb.

I am not concerned about saving space, btw. I just want to be sure there isn't anything fishy with the extra 1.5gb that I'm seeing.

pEACe

Ya, it is the raw data in the blockchain.  The files include the index (blkindex.dat), which is over 1.4 GB at the moment.

Wow, that;s a lot of growth since I switched to Electrum a couple months ago.  Sounds like pruning is becoming more pressing

Is this a pressing problem? My mediocre desktop runs a node 24/7 without me even noticing.  Currently using a 500 GB drive that was standard three years ago. Plenty of space left, and upgrades are cheap when needed.

Yeah, it's a problem.
Less people are willing to run a full node and newcomers may get discouraged if they see that they have to wait 2-3 days to use their bitcoins. Sure, there is Electrum and other wallets which do not require the user to store the entire blockchain on their PC but most of them are unaware of it.

Basically what happened is that SatoshiDice started. The chain has been growing ridiculously because of that. The number of daily transactions has more than quadrupled after Satoshidice went online.

Unless we ban gambling and interest, BTC like fiat currency is doooomed.  :-[

While 5 gigs isn't really a big issue, bootstrapping is a serious issue already and I expect that the trend towards growing block sizes will continue.  Light clients are destined to be the most common method for an end user to interact with the bitcoin network regardless, but blockchain pruning will permit more people to run full clients for a longer period of time.  This has all been expected, I just didn't expect it so quickly.

I think this is more of a hardware problem than a software problem. A good rule of thumb is: always target the computers made 2 years ago for a technical audience, 5 years ago for active internet users, and 10 years ago for the general populace. Bitcoin had previously thrived well enough on 2009 and 2010 hardware, but in the near future this will age with adoption.

Already, 2007 and 2008 hardware is beginning to become commonplace, leading to complaints that Bitcoin is slow or it takes too much space. SSDs made in 2010 are rarely greater than 5 USD/GB, so those aren't problems. Those in 2008, however, can be 20 USD or even more per GB, the best being smaller than 20 GB.

Hardware will continue to get older as the general populace begins to adopt Bitcoin. Eventually, 2004 hard drives such as 80 GB non-SSD drives will begin to run Bitcoin. This is where the lite nodes come in.

Bitcoin's growth will never outpace hard drive growth. But in the near future, the hard drives will be shrinking, not growing, as the technology that runs Bitcoin becomes older and older. It will be a rough 5 years.

DOS-like constructs such as 'satoshi dice' will just shift power to the 'money changers' where it can be more easily pilfered a bit at a time if not flat out stolen.  Not being a gambler myself, it is easy to hypothesis that that is part of the goal of 'satoshi dice'.  It would be really interesting to know how 'Satoshi' would like his name pinned on this construct.

OTOH, 'satoshi dice' really is something which is getting the attention of the more philosophical and technically capable of the crypto-currency community.  On balance, I personally sense that it is a positive contribution at an opportune time for that reason alone.  But then again my attention has wandered away from crypto-currencies generally of late so I've paid even less attention to it than I normally would.

I think one of the reasons SatoshiDice is used so hugely as it is, is because there is really not very much you can DO with Bitcoins once you have them other than gambling.

You can get them stolen which seems a more likely outcome when using bitcoin.

If there were more "things to do," blockchain would be even larger than it is today.  Either way, several GB today is not a problem in terms of cost of storage. The problem is the initial download simply because we are not upfront with the newbies, so they get disappointed. Direct download links on the main page of bitcoin.org do not contain any explanations and warnings, and should be removed. Download page contains an overview of various clients, which is good, but points should be bulleted, and warning about initial download more prominent. That way there would be no bad surprises.

Sure, 5.6GB is borderline acceptable, but what happens in a year when it's 10-20GB? My 120GB SSD isn't looking so hot. I'll have to upgrade my SSD cuz I'm already running out of room, and then I'll have to download the whole 20GB again.

Alternative: Is there a way to move the blockchain to a different spot? Maybe onto my 1TB external? And if I do decide to replace my OS drive, just point the new Bitcoin-qt at the old blockchain, and have it pick up where I left off?

Good points both and I cannot disagree.  Neither loss (or gain) from gambling has effected me, nor have I had anything stolen (except for a few BTC which I left at Bitcoinica and I anticipated that as the likely outcome.)

For my part, I'm content to just sit on the Bitcoin I have obtained.  For years.  The main danger I face is not being able to remember how to get them out of deep storage if/when I have reason to.  Because my assortment of computers and network gear changes, I'll probably have to build a machine upon which I wish to run bitcoind and try to get bitcoind to compile on it (and now download a rather massive amount of data) in order to re-activate my wallets.  Both of these are tedious.  Probably I'll end up doing in the cloud since by the time I get around to it, it will be wholly unworkable to run Bitcoin at home.

You can point your client to any directory, just add a handle:


See https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=128575.0

Someone more versed should explain if you should detach the database at shutdown before moving it.

Yes - you can move the blockchain.  It is critical to be sure either bitcoin-qt or bitcoind is completely shutdown before you copy/move the blockchain.

I keep a copy on my server (running bitcoind) and one on ym desktop (bitcoin-qt on windows).  I have saved myself the headache of re-downloading when I corrupted my server copy by moving it over from my desktop.

2 local copies of the blockchain FTW  ;D

That is not surprising because degenerative practices like gambling and interest will kill innovation.

@tvbcof  If it was used to redistribute wealth, then I can see gambling a good thing for Bitcoin. Otherwise, BTC will be nothing more than a movement/fad unless we eliminate greed and usury.

I'm not here to make money. I'm here to be part of a revolution !

pEACe

Amen brotha...I as well (though I'll not turn down a monetary reward if it pops up to be honest, and if I did decide to 'give some back' to the cause, it would probably be only a fraction.)

As for gambling, it's not my thing but many people and most cultures embrace it.  Some people have fun throwing away their money, and other people make a living off taking it.  I'm not going to produce any resistance simply on the basis that I find it rather ignorant and/or mildly exploitative.  If gambling kills Bitcoin than Bitcoin was simply not strong enough to face it's bigger challenges on the horizon anyway IMHO.

As for 'greed and usury'. I consider it an impossible task to 'stop'.  It's just the way humans are wired.  The best solution is to design things such that these unseemly aspects of human nature serve to strengthen the solution.  That's tricky, but I actually feel that the designer(s) of Bitcoin did a pretty fair job of doing just this in certain parts of the implementation.  Beyond that, Bitcoin seems pretty neutral.  There is a lot of latitude on how it could be used, and how revolutionary it turns out in practice is a huge question mark in my mind.

You also must start up with the detachdb argument set and shut down cleanly.

In any case, if the poster decides to delete it they should at least keep the wallet— which is small.  No one should ever delete a wallet which has ever had coins sent to it.  If nothing else, if you're _sure_ you don't want it— post it to the forum or email it to me or something.
 

Is it that important to conserve coins, even if it's just a few satoshis remaining?

I think gmaxwell is specifically referring to preventing instances like this:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=82600.0

If *someone* has the wallet, there's a higher chance that the person who lost their coin gets it returned.

Send coins to an offline savings address - brainwallet or similar in a safe.

But for miners, I think they have to have the blockchain locally for mining, no?

I still think it's a problem though. That blockchain is the distributed part of bitcoin. It needs to be distributed. Light clients are fine and dandy but without the blockchain, to take the RMS attitude, it's not really Bitcoin.

The hardware argument is partially valid but not complete because while capacities are expanding connectivity is a different story. There's been talk on this, especially in mobile internet like 3G in countries like the USA and the UK. Less so for mainland Europe and Asian countries like Korea.

Also, it's just good to be able to run bitcoin truly on many devices.

So I'm looking forward to Bitcoin 0.8 addressing this problem.