Prevent bitcoin from downloading blocks?

[Melech]

How would I prevent bitcoind from downloading 60GB worth of data?

I would like to add certain bitcoin services to my web-server without running a full node.

[achow101]

You could run it in pruned mode so that 60+ Gb of data isn't stored on the disk. It would still need to download the entire blockchain but it wouldn't all be stored. This gives you full node functionality without the storage requirement.

[arbitrage]

Do i need to delete my old blockchain sync files or else?
How long gonna take if i download new version of wallet to sync ?
What is version with small chain? Can you give us some detail?
I dont want to start syncing that could last 5 days ..Need access to my coins..

[sho_road_warrior]

Do i need to delete my old blockchain sync files or else?
How long gonna take if i download new version of wallet to sync ?
What is version with small chain? Can you give us some detail?
I dont want to start syncing that could last 5 days ..Need access to my coins..

A pruned node can not yet run a wallet, you need to wait for 0.12.

You can keep the old files and just enable pruning once you updated.

[arbitrage]

I will send my coins to multibit wallet then i will resend it back when i finish syncing never version of wallet.
 But this is frustrating i'm using old version of wallet and didn't sync long time..

[Moloch]

A pruned node can not yet run a wallet, you need to wait for 0.12.

You can keep the old files and just enable pruning once you updated.

I hear 0.12 should be released in a few days:
What's new in Bitcoin Core 0.12 - Jonas Schnelli, Core Developer

As for the blockchain size, he mentions 2GB in the video... which sounds amazing compared to 60GB... a 96% reduction?

[shorena]

A pruned node can not yet run a wallet, you need to wait for 0.12.

You can keep the old files and just enable pruning once you updated.

I hear 0.12 should be released in a few days:
What's new in Bitcoin Core 0.12 - Jonas Schnelli, Core Developer

As for the blockchain size, he mentions 2GB in the video... which sounds amazing compared to 60GB... a 96% reduction?

The blockchain size is not reduced, you just dont store all of the data. There are some downsides though, like the need to redownload everything if you need to rescan the entire blockchain for some reason.

[Moloch]

A pruned node can not yet run a wallet, you need to wait for 0.12.

You can keep the old files and just enable pruning once you updated.

I hear 0.12 should be released in a few days:
What's new in Bitcoin Core 0.12 - Jonas Schnelli, Core Developer

As for the blockchain size, he mentions 2GB in the video... which sounds amazing compared to 60GB... a 96% reduction?

The blockchain size is not reduced, you just dont store all of the data. There are some downsides though, like the need to redownload everything if you need to rescan the entire blockchain for some reason.

Semantics...

You download the entire 60GB, then it gets trimmed to 2GB... the 2GB footprint is what I'm referring to (assuming his figure was accurate)...
2GB of disk space costs me $0.20/month as opposed to the 60GB+, which would cost $6+/month

I'm curious if this trimming is done in real-time, or after the entire 60GB is downloaded... i.e., could I get away with a trimmed node on a 5-10GB drive, or would it crash after downloading the first 100k blocks?

[achow101]

Semantics...

You download the entire 60GB, then it gets trimmed to 2GB... the 2GB footprint is what I'm referring to (assuming his figure was accurate)...
2GB of disk space costs me $0.20/month as opposed to the 60GB+, which would cost $6+/month

What about bandwidth? Some people have bandwidth limits and still downloading 60GB of data requires bandwidth. The bandwidth requirement doesn't change, just the storage requirement. It isn't just semantics as there are other things that are still affected by requiring a full download. The pruning doesn't affect the time it takes to download, index, and verify the data. It also doesn't affect the CPU requirements, still need a decently fast CPU to crunch all that data. But in terms of storage, yes it is a big improvement.

The downside is that you can't fully sync someone else and if everyone were to prune, then we would lose a large portion of the blockchain which of course would be bad.

I'm curious if this trimming is done in real-time, or after the entire 60GB is downloaded... i.e., could I get away with a trimmed node on a 5-10GB drive, or would it crash after downloading the first 100k blocks?

It is done in real time. It stores until it reaches that threshold and then starts deleting the old stuff so that you maintain the same amount of space taken up on the disk.

[Moloch]

What about bandwidth? Some people have bandwidth limits and still downloading 60GB of data requires bandwidth. The bandwidth requirement doesn't change, just the storage requirement. It isn't just semantics as there are other things that are still affected by requiring a full download. The pruning doesn't affect the time it takes to download, index, and verify the data. It also doesn't affect the CPU requirements, still need a decently fast CPU to crunch all that data. But in terms of storage, yes it is a big improvement.

The downside is that you can't fully sync someone else and if everyone were to prune, then we would lose a large portion of the blockchain which of course would be bad.

I am less worried about the bandwidth, which will also be significantly reduced...  Once the blocks are trimmed, they cant be sent to another user/node... which will reduce bandwidth usage...

Sure, you still need to download 60GB worth of blocks, but you wont be uploading those 60GB to anyone...

[achow101]

What about bandwidth? Some people have bandwidth limits and still downloading 60GB of data requires bandwidth. The bandwidth requirement doesn't change, just the storage requirement. It isn't just semantics as there are other things that are still affected by requiring a full download. The pruning doesn't affect the time it takes to download, index, and verify the data. It also doesn't affect the CPU requirements, still need a decently fast CPU to crunch all that data. But in terms of storage, yes it is a big improvement.

The downside is that you can't fully sync someone else and if everyone were to prune, then we would lose a large portion of the blockchain which of course would be bad.

I am less worried about the bandwidth, which will also be significantly reduced...  Once the blocks are trimmed, they cant be sent to another user/node... which will reduce bandwidth usage...

Sure, you still need to download 60GB worth of blocks, but you wont be uploading those 60GB to anyone...

True, but it will still be relaying any new blocks and transactions that it receives. Pruning in 0.12 will have block relay enabled.

[Moloch]

True, but it will still be relaying any new blocks and transactions that it receives. Pruning in 0.12 will have block relay enabled.

Can't I disable that as well? (If I really wanted to reduce bandwidth usage)

[achow101]

True, but it will still be relaying any new blocks and transactions that it receives. Pruning in 0.12 will have block relay enabled.

Can't I disable that as well? (If I really wanted to reduce bandwidth usage)

I don't think you can explicitly disable block relaying but you can set the maxuploadtarget to be something really low so that you aren't uploading a lot of data.

[shorena]

True, but it will still be relaying any new blocks and transactions that it receives. Pruning in 0.12 will have block relay enabled.

Can't I disable that as well? (If I really wanted to reduce bandwidth usage)

I don't think you can explicitly disable block relaying but you can set the maxuploadtarget to be something really low so that you aren't uploading a lot of data.

Pruning in 0.11 has block relay enabled as well AFAIK. This is my traffic the last few days with a pruned node and 39-42 connections:



Its a joke. I have 85GiB for the entire january while 150+GiB was normal before.