Bitcoin Forum

I'm running Bitcoin 0.3.24 for Mac. Everything is good, but as long as I have the application running my hard disk spins like crazy (I can hear it). At the beginning I thought it was just downloading and writing a big file but it won't stop even after running the app for some hours.

Any of you seeing the same thing? Why is that?

Thanks for your help!

The client do download the new blocks as they get generated...

is the client still downloading blocks, or does the HD still spin when you are at the block head?  Remember you don't need to run your bitcoin client all the time, in fact it's probably better for security not to (and store your wallet somewhere safe) - just run the client when you want to make a payment (but be sure to wait until the blockchain is downloaded before sending a payment!)

Will

What version of osx are you running? I am using the Mac version of bitcoin and haven't run into the problem of a continuously spinning drive.

I've noticed Chrome downloads web pages much more slowly when Bitcoin is up and running. Not sure about increased hard disk accesses, though. I have a macbook with Snow Leopard.

The only issue I have noticed is that the bitcoin client opens fairly slow compared to other programs.

Buy an SSD ;) Seriously though, keep in mind that it is a P2P app, in theory every client with enough resources handles some of the network traffic and load.

I have a Mac Mini with C2D 2GHz, 4GB ram (only 3GB addressable), and 64GB SSD.  After a few days of running the Mac client, everything on the computer would be laggy (spinning color wheel for 1-5 seconds on everything from clicking a link in Firefox to opening various programs).

I suspect all the P2P connections are not cleaning up correctly.  Quitting and restarting Bitcoin only helped for a few minutes, but restarting the computer fixed the problem.  I've since moved my wallet to a Win 7 machine and have had no problems.

Edit: forgot to mention, the database takes up over 500MB, so yes, opening it up when not on an SSD can be slow.  Many Macs use low RPM laptop hard drives, so it would help to know what specific Mac is having what problems.  But even with an SSD, after a few days, the P2P connections bog down the computer (not CPU or memory related)

I'm running 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) on an 2010 iMac. Hard drive problems are still there, also Bitcoin is considerably slowing down other apps, but does not show high CPU usage in activity monitor. This mac client really puzzles me.

Any other mac users having this problem and found a solution? It's almost impossible for me to have the mac bitcoin client running as it slows down everything else massively! I'm thinking now of installing a virtual machine to get the windows client up…

On my MBP Activity Monitor shows a constant write of 1-2MB/s to the disk with the Bitcoin app open. That's way way more than needed to perform blockchain activities.

Not only that, but the client takes forever to load.  This morning I compiled the bitcoin-qt for Mac and it works much smoother.

Hi,

i have the same problem on WindowsXP! Yesterday i installed the latest official Bitcoin client for Windows (the first time for me).
After i started the client, the harddrive gone crazy for hours. Then i uninstalled the software.

Sorry guys, such a software is not ready for the market. Many users will be disappointed und will turn their back to Bitcoins, like i did.

Chers

The block chain is large and contains a record of ALL bitcoin transactions, so it does take a fair bit of hard drive activity to get it all up and running.

This is one of the reasons why thin clients have been made, they do not need the entire block chain to function.

My opinion about this is, that in computing, everything is possible. Also copying all bitcoin transactions locally is possible with tolerable harddrive access.
Think of if it as a product manager, not as a developer.

It's perfectly normal.
The client is downloading and checking the whole blockchain, that contains all the blocks and transactions ever happened. Hard drive crunch a lot cause it keep checking if each block is fine and is compatible with the older ones (thus avoiding fake blocks)

Let me repeat this:

And probably it would be a long discussion, why it is possible, and why it is not possible! Yet i see no problem with it.

Chers