Bitcoin Forum

I'm installing a pruned node on a mobile device, I was surprised that 2GB was default but seemed pretty low. The more I'm able to store the better I imagine?

Pruned mode is for people who want an up-to-date client who has validated the whole chain itself but don't want to let the blockchain occupy too much of your hard drive.

It all depends on what you want to achieve with your node. If you just want to use it as a safe wallet, set the prune limit to as much as you want core to have of your hard drive.

However, if you regularly swap wallets inside of core you'll need to download the whole blockchain again to build the available UTXO's.
If you have enough disk space (HDs are extremely cheap currently), it is better to run core without pruning. In case of any failure, you will save yourself from downloading the data again.

Thank you for all the reply's. I'll be more specific.

I'm looking to run a node on a 256gb microSD A1 or above. Essentially I can swap this from phone to phone, tablet to tablet, etc easily and have in my opinion a full node in place of a light wallet?

Thoughts?

If you have 256gb, you don't need any pruning at all. The best in this case would be to store the complete blockchain.

Also, note that this might not work out as you are expecting. Core needs a continuous connection to the memory. This might fail with a SD card.
In this case some data is going to be corrupted, requiring a resync.

But in theory.. yes, this would be a 'light wallet' (in terms of portability) using a full node.

Well it would just be for the node nothing else. 100 mb/s read is the spec I'm looking at, doesn't say what the write is though.

Yeah, i also believe this won't work out well. SD cards (or external HD's) aren't very good at guaranteeing a continuous connection.
But without pruning and some rescans, it theoretically should work somewhat good.




SD cards use flash memory (same as USB sticks and SSD's).
So a SD card should be at least as fast as a HDD by default, even cheap ones (but their durability is way lower than from a quality SD card).

We'll I'm going to proceed with a "mobile" node with this mircoSD card I paid for myself. Not by mfb or given by PNY. I'll try to load everything including application onto it and will prune at 230 gb. Will update as it goes. Sorry for refection.

https://i.imgur.com/AFRV0yi.jpg 

Half hour in mobile mesh.

https://i.imgur.com/cir5z5w.jpg

Not sure how to resize but should have posted without screen capture.

https://i.imgur.com/0qL5wYt.jpg

It's always interested me to know how well a mobile device handles the satoshi bitcoin client, it's obviously always been possible (and now that people are using Arm A53 class SoC machines like Raspis for full nodes + lightning, it's obviously practical).

I'd recommend supplying the -blocksonly parameter to bitcoind as well as -prune (assuming the app lets you do that easily enough). Your data plan will get crushed if you re-sync the blockchain over your cell connection too regularly, relaying transactions and all the other network messages will make that something like twice as data-hungry.

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You want this in your image tags to change image size:
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The flash memory in microSD cards isn't designed to sustain so many write operations. It'll wear out quickly. You're better of buying an SSD and using that.

The mobile device I can't update the main drive with more storage but can add the microSD storage. This is a high grade microSD but still more of an experiment, yes.

Looks like 99GB is max for a pruned node. UL speed has fluctuated when using the device. 63% progress into May 2017 blocks, 15 hrs remaining as of now.

Fortunately you won't need pruning. The current size of the blockchain is at about 184 GB.

You might also want to backup the chainstate folder (on the same sd card, in a different directory).
This will allow you to get to a working state if your current chainstate will get corrupted.




Feel free to update regarding stability and convenience.
We'll also gladly assist in any occurring problems.

We'll just a couple more hours till done syncing. I did select pruned as Core website said it needed 220gb from what I recall and would be about 10gb added monthly? 

I'll try and get the back up as suggested. Currently the "disk" is at 90-100% usage while UL and get's average of 7MB/s read/write. Not to bad. Might UL faster with pruning I imagine.

Everything works well. Read/write to disk is about 2 mb/s "spikes" three or four times a minute, or so. The initial strain is obviously the ul of history for two days. One thing I miss is incoming connections of a full node. Unless I'm missing something?

220 gb sounds a bit too much. Blockchain size is currently at ~184 GB and core shouldn't need more than a few GB.
Also 10 GB quarterly sounds more appropriate than monthly.




You need to enable incoming connections in the settings first.
Also, did you set port forwarding of port 8333 on your router ?

So pruned I can have incoming then? It depends on the network I suppose being mobile (to have ports forwarded). At least a couple networks i traveled to today do but still only 8 out.

Whether you are running a pruned node or not has no influence on the incoming connections.

If the network you are visiting with your full node, doesn't have port 8333 forwarded to your machine, you can not accept incoming connections.
You'll need either to contact the administrator to give you a static IP and set port forwarding for this IP, or live without incoming connections.

Note that your node is fully functional, you just don't support the network without incoming connections.

I had forgotten about the port forwarding. So being mobile I may have to let that go as I wont be able to control other networks or hotspots, etc.

The disc is practically idle now when minimized to taskbar on the winX tablet i'm using. Transactions in and out working fine, I suppose if you have a wallet that connects to a node already it maybe redundant.

Since my goal was to have a full node w/incoming traffic my shortsightedness let me down but still may suffer another ul period to at least sync the full chain.

I don't have a windows phone but wonder if I can swap the card out between devices? Maybe give it try after some research, or experience of others replying.   

What do you have stored on your SD card ?

Just the blockchain + chainstate files or all files which are necessary to run the node ?


With blockchain and chainstate files, you should be able to simply swap the card into multiple devices to have your blockchain available.
If you however intend to run your node on multiple operating systems without core being installed there, you'd need to have all necessary binaries stored there too.

Generally it is definitely possible to swap the card between multiple devices. But what would be a windows phone for ?

I installed everything on the card, application and all. Would just be more portability, something smaller than the tablet. Then I've never used a windows phone. Still researching to see what is out there and how they work.

In all pretty happy with the node on the tablet so far. Just cant browse the web as quickly when it starts to sync in the am after being off line.

Just a quick update and feel free to lock.

SD card is working flawlessly. No issues at all. I may suffer the slow read and write speed for a full node but may just wait when I find a larger card that will give plenty of room for growth. Thank you to everyone for the help, troubleshooting, and idea bouncing.