[ANN] Sia - Decentralized Storage

[Trial]

I repeat the question.
It mining began? Why there isn't enough information? So has to be?

You seem to be mining. But you aren't going to get any blocks with that.

Mining is still in development. Sia original was not suppose to be mining coin. Mining aspect will be worked on more slowly

than storage aspect but since it is mining for consensus of course it is important.

Its better for people like you to wait for mining pool which can be a while longer.

Thanks for the answer.
People started mining SIA on June 7. Information as mining aren't present. Samples of the .bat and .conf files aren't present.
Nobody shares information by mining. Many already mining, I join late, because of a lack of information.

[akaman]

Also, I cannot Announce my storage. I get the error message:
"Error 400 Bad request host address not reachable; ensure you have forwarded port 9982"

I have forwarded port 9982 on my router. Still doesn't work.

I think you have to forward 9981 as well

I forgot to save the setting on the router... Seems 9982 was sufficient. I'll leave it at that unless others can confirm port 9981 needs to be forwarded as well.

Now, my IP also appears in the Hosts lists on the Sia Explorer page. Cool!

I noticed a myqnapcloud.com hostname in the list as well. Is anyone here running Sia on a QNAP NAS? I have one sitting with lots of space to spare and would like to run that as a host as well, if possible...

By the way: Can I change the default port from 9982 to something else, in case I want to run multiple hosts in a network with a shared IP?

Blockchain synchronization, however, is still extremely slow! I'm still just at block height 2033, after nearly 15 hours... Can anyone share a bootstrap chain?

[akaman]

Its obvious we have a lot of new comers to SIA who have not been with it since the first on going still under development BETA  wallet. So they are trying to jump in in the middle of a major wallet upgrade and are easily getting discouraged.

All the criticism however is unwarranted by those who have not gone back through and simply read up to the point we are at now with the wallet.

As a newcomer, I'll speak on behalf of a few of us.

Sure, Sia appears buggy. Sure, its beta. However, it is BETA, and not ALPHA. Remember how long GMail was beta? Quite some time... Beta typically implies working, yet potentially with some trouble  spots. Sia's issues are more than minor bugs. The usability bugs in Sia are apparently serious enough to render wallets for non-experts unusable and corrupting the databases, causing loss of money (yes, real money if you'd like) and time.

I've gathered this much that Sia is still a small community of developers and users. There are 33 hosts, a few repeat posters on this thread, and 28 subscribers to the Reddit forum... I can understand people getting upset when people criticize their baby. Yet, projects such as these can only move forward with continuous valuable feedback from new users. As a coder myself, I know the value of testing my software with new users. They have a (sad) tendency to click all the 'wrong' buttons and do everything in the 'wrong' order, hence revealing all the bugs in my software before even getting it to work once! This happened to me yesterday with Sia as I was unaware of the implications of killing the siad process after closing the GUI, hence corrupting my database and forcing me to resync. I *could* have figured this out in advance if I had heeded your advice above and read through this thread first. But seriously, do you expect every new user to skim through 111 pages of posts, before downloading and running a couple of binaries of BETA software? When was the last time you did that?

The Sia community should welcome criticism from newcomers, however harsh and unwarranted they may seem, as they reflect the user experience from a beginners standpoint. After all, if you can't make the newcomers happy, how can you ever expect the user base to grow?

Having said so, I understand your sentiment, and I understand Sia is work-in-progress. Yet, and I stress, the software is BETA and not ALPHA, which implies usability.

Sia seems a really, really cool project, and I've decided to jump into it and support it in these early phases. I will run a node/host, buy some Siacoin and help out new users by sharing my experiences as I learn. This is how you grow a community, not by effectively ostracizing them when their complaints are too harsh to handle.

[akaman]

The future majority of hosts will likely be technical people. Sia's focus is not imo people to use to keep their photo in cloud for iphone.
It is for youtube or netflix or may youtube's competitor. Business that needs cheap reliable millions of terabytes to store.

This does not make sense. If the Sia network is to be used as cheap storage for businesses' massive storage requirements, where is that storage supposed to come from?

I assumed that Sia was about enabling unused storage on millions of devices around the world to be part of a massive network, which then entities with storage requirements could use.

Clearly, the millions of devices we're talking about belong to Average Joe and Jane. Thus, the client software must be dumb-proofed and simple enough to be used by a 'regular' person.

[Malibusparky]

But seriously, do you expect every new user to skim through 111 pages of posts, before downloading and running a couple of binaries of BETA software? When was the last time you did that?

I actually do expect that. But it doesn't bother me if people don't. What does bother me is someone who doesn't skim through what a

project is about then make wrong assumptions. Automatically assuming it should be as stable as other clone coins.

If Sia were dogecoin part 2 then the current wallet state and user friendliness would deserve some huge flaming.

When you dont skim through a project's thread you come off as stupid when you say the wallet is a bit unstable and not user friendly.

Cause its like duh. Whoever said it wasn't?

All newcomers are welcome and opinions are encouraged, another duh. But I think you are misunderstanding some of our "defensive posts".

If you don't want to read up on a project thats understandable. But then don't make ignorant comments because the reason we want you to

skim through the thread is because we've heard your comment 50 times before from 50 other people who also don't understand what the

project is aiming to do and where it came from.

[MinermanNC]

The future majority of hosts will likely be technical people. Sia's focus is not imo people to use to keep their photo in cloud for iphone.
It is for youtube or netflix or may youtube's competitor. Business that needs cheap reliable millions of terabytes to store.

This does not make sense. If the Sia network is to be used as cheap storage for businesses' massive storage requirements, where is that storage supposed to come from?

I assumed that Sia was about enabling unused storage on millions of devices around the world to be part of a massive network, which then entities with storage requirements could use.

Clearly, the millions of devices we're talking about belong to Average Joe and Jane. Thus, the client software must be dumb-proofed and simple enough to be used by a 'regular' person.

Your correct, anyone running a open wallet can also set the amount of hard drive storage they wish to dedicate to SIA, with very little knowledge or effort. And get paid a little SIA for doing so. The issue now however, is opening the 2 required ports. That does require a little geekness" as it has to be done manually. Upcoming versions will have UPnP so opening the ports for hosting will not be an issue then. Taek correct me if I am wrong there.  

[MinermanNC]

Now I am sure some will have massive storage farms for hosting and will make a pretty decent steady SIA coin return from it, so long as the demand is there. But for mass global storage, I feel the little regular guy will have to be participating, and why not.. ya get paid for doing nothing,,, covers your cost of having the PC turned on lol

EDIT: And it will cover the cost of your own file storage mostly or at least help to cover cost. 

[Malibusparky]

The future majority of hosts will likely be technical people. Sia's focus is not imo people to use to keep their photo in cloud for iphone.
It is for youtube or netflix or may youtube's competitor. Business that needs cheap reliable millions of terabytes to store.

This does not make sense. If the Sia network is to be used as cheap storage for businesses' massive storage requirements, where is that storage supposed to come from?

I assumed that Sia was about enabling unused storage on millions of devices around the world to be part of a massive network, which then entities with storage requirements could use.

Clearly, the millions of devices we're talking about belong to Average Joe and Jane. Thus, the client software must be dumb-proofed and simple enough to be used by a 'regular' person.

Again this is my opinion but it is based on dev words and logical vision of Sia.

I don't see millions of joes renting their unused 200 gb from their laptop. Running Sia and keeping the client open up and running long

enough to be considered  a reliable host. Certainly the more hosts the better and the beauty in Sia is anybody can rent their space.

But realistically Sia will be a success because it allows anybody to set up their own cloud business. I can aspire to take a piece of amazon

cloud's pie by going out and buying 200 terbytes of hdds. Announcing my space on Sia without registering as a business or any licenses.

Now I attract cloud users by setting my price to what I think will take business away from amazon and use my space. Although netflix

needs millions of terabytes to run their business, my 200 terabytes is one of many reliable "small host companies" that netflix uses to

stream to their customers.

[Taek]

Oh, Sia-UI-v0.4.2-beta-win32.zip includes x64 version of siad and dosent work on x32 systems 

Okay, should be fixed now. Thanks.

Somebody will answer where Sia a wallet keeps the downloaded blocks?

Sia/consensus/set.db

Stuff like this...
Will limit this (very promising) project to super-geeks that unlimited time to f*ck around with crypto wallets.

That said, the GUI wallet is what counts and it's making progress:



OK, the blockchain is updated and I've transferred a little test coin from Polo...
But, of course, I'm LOCKED OUT... even after I've been given a 29 word passphrase (where NXT uses only 12 words).



Oh, the Dev wants me to run another 2 separate command line utilities...
And muck around with more passphrases with little known copy/paste techniques via consoles.

Let's add 17 more "locks", baby = very poor design.

Sorry, but you HAVE TO make GUI wallet standalone to attract normal people. Please make standalone GUI wallet a priority.

It's called 'beta' for a reason  

We're still working through the kinks, each version we try to make it more user friendly.

Is there an estimate of how many Sia nodes are currently running?

Yes, right now 32.
http://explore.siacoin.com/

Are those nodes that only offer space, or all nodes connected? I don't appear on that list. Is that because I'm not done syncing the blockchain yet?

You won't appear until you finish syncing. That list should be ~a full list.

I've been syncing for 10 hours now. I'm at block height 1976 (connected to 8 peers). Is it normally this slow?

Also, I cannot Announce my storage. I get the error message:
"Error 400 Bad request host address not reachable; ensure you have forwarded port 9982"

I have forwarded port 9982 on my router. Still doesn't work.

Sounds like you froze the client by unlocking the wallet before the syncing finished. This is a bug, but avoidable by waiting to unlock the wallet. Hope to have a fix in the next 2 weeks.

You'll have to do a 'force announce' if it doesn't think you've forwarded your port, but you know that you have forwarded your port.

Also, I cannot Announce my storage. I get the error message:
"Error 400 Bad request host address not reachable; ensure you have forwarded port 9982"

I have forwarded port 9982 on my router. Still doesn't work.

I think you have to forward 9981 as well

Let me know if that works, I don't think it will help but on the off chance that it does... good to know for all other users.

I'm splitting my response into 2 posts since there's a lot to say. Sorry if I missed anyone, tried not to forget anything.

[MinermanNC]

The future majority of hosts will likely be technical people. Sia's focus is not imo people to use to keep their photo in cloud for iphone.
It is for youtube or netflix or may youtube's competitor. Business that needs cheap reliable millions of terabytes to store.

This does not make sense. If the Sia network is to be used as cheap storage for businesses' massive storage requirements, where is that storage supposed to come from?

I assumed that Sia was about enabling unused storage on millions of devices around the world to be part of a massive network, which then entities with storage requirements could use.

Clearly, the millions of devices we're talking about belong to Average Joe and Jane. Thus, the client software must be dumb-proofed and simple enough to be used by a 'regular' person.

Again this is my opinion but it is based on dev words and logical vision of Sia.

I don't see millions of joes renting their unused 200 gb from their laptop. Running Sia and keeping the client open up and running long

enough to be considered  a reliable host. Certainly the more hosts the better and the beauty in Sia is anybody can rent their space.

But realistically Sia will be a success because it allows anybody to set up their own cloud business. I can aspire to take a piece of amazon

cloud's pie by going out and buying 200 terbytes of hdds. Announcing my space on Sia without registering as a business or any licenses.

Now I attract cloud users by setting my price to what I think will take business away from amazon and use my space. Although netflix

needs millions of terabytes to run their business, my 200 terabytes is one of many reliable "small host companies" that netflix uses to

stream to their customers.

All good points, just keep in mind that you would also be competing against other SIA host in terms of where you would have to set your price point, regardless of what Netflix or youtube etc. are paying in todays market place, or even just normal users like us. Ultimately all of us who will host on a larger scale will all have to be less than todays normal cloud hosting prices per GH/month to start.

I can also see a point in time where company's/individuals would be willing to pay even more for SIA services because of its anonymity. That could possibly cause demand for SIA as the preferred way to cloud host. So really the sky is the limit. But I don't feel the in the early days we can be more expensive per dollar/GH

[Taek]

By the way: Can I change the default port from 9982 to something else, in case I want to run multiple hosts in a network with a shared IP?

Blockchain synchronization, however, is still extremely slow! I'm still just at block height 2033, after nearly 15 hours... Can anyone share a bootstrap chain?

`./siad --help` to see a list of flags. You can change the port from '9982' by running `./siad -H ":1234"` I believe.

Blockchain synchronization is only that slow typically if you deadlocked the program (by unlocking the wallet before synchronization fixed). Sorry for the usability inconvenience, we're working on fixing it (along with the database corruption issues).

The future majority of hosts will likely be technical people. Sia's focus is not imo people to use to keep their photo in cloud for iphone.
It is for youtube or netflix or may youtube's competitor. Business that needs cheap reliable millions of terabytes to store.

This does not make sense. If the Sia network is to be used as cheap storage for businesses' massive storage requirements, where is that storage supposed to come from?

I assumed that Sia was about enabling unused storage on millions of devices around the world to be part of a massive network, which then entities with storage requirements could use.

Clearly, the millions of devices we're talking about belong to Average Joe and Jane. Thus, the client software must be dumb-proofed and simple enough to be used by a 'regular' person.

Actually, we expect the majority of storage to come from dedicated enthusiasts and entrepreneurs, which is the same place that the majority of Bitcoin mining comes from. Many businesses also have millions of dollars of idle hardware (because they need it for scaling over the next year+, but have not hit scale yet), from which we will also draw a lot of our storage. Long term, I don't expect anyone who is not 98%+ uptime to make income or profit. Short term, we are catering to smaller devices because they are still a core part of our network. As things continue to evolve, we'll continue to adapt.

But seriously, do you expect every new user to skim through 111 pages of posts, before downloading and running a couple of binaries of BETA software? When was the last time you did that?

I actually do expect that. But it doesn't bother me if people don't. What does bother me is someone who doesn't skim through what a

I do not expect that. We try to keep all of the important information here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zNpAct53E_5p4KO3_-ZOrg5N9HQw8ACTQ7zAyksSIf8

If anything is missing from this document, let us know what, and we'll add it. While Sia is in beta, I do expect people to read that whole document.

Sure, Sia appears buggy. Sure, its beta. However, it is BETA, and not ALPHA. Remember how long GMail was beta? Quite some time... Beta typically implies working, yet potentially with some trouble  spots. Sia's issues are more than minor bugs. The usability bugs in Sia are apparently serious enough to render wallets for non-experts unusable and corrupting the databases, causing loss of money (yes, real money if you'd like) and time.

I've gathered this much that Sia is still a small community of developers and users. There are 33 hosts, a few repeat posters on this thread, and 28 subscribers to the Reddit forum... I can understand people getting upset when people criticize their baby. Yet, projects such as these can only move forward with continuous valuable feedback from new users. As a coder myself, I know the value of testing my software with new users. They have a (sad) tendency to click all the 'wrong' buttons and do everything in the 'wrong' order, hence revealing all the bugs in my software before even getting it to work once! This happened to me yesterday with Sia as I was unaware of the implications of killing the siad process after closing the GUI, hence corrupting my database and forcing me to resync. I *could* have figured this out in advance if I had heeded your advice above and read through this thread first. But seriously, do you expect every new user to skim through 111 pages of posts, before downloading and running a couple of binaries of BETA software? When was the last time you did that?

The Sia community should welcome criticism from newcomers, however harsh and unwarranted they may seem, as they reflect the user experience from a beginners standpoint. After all, if you can't make the newcomers happy, how can you ever expect the user base to grow?

Having said so, I understand your sentiment, and I understand Sia is work-in-progress. Yet, and I stress, the software is BETA and not ALPHA, which implies usability.

Sia seems a really, really cool project, and I've decided to jump into it and support it in these early phases. I will run a node/host, buy some Siacoin and help out new users by sharing my experiences as I learn. This is how you grow a community, not by effectively ostracizing them when their complaints are too harsh to handle.

Most people are able to use the beta without much trouble. The newcomers are having more trouble, and we value your feedback greatly. We can't improve it if we don't know how it's failing for people. 0.4.x has some pretty major problems that we're regretting releasing, we didn't realize how much of a pitfall it would be for people. 0.4.3 will remove the most major stumbling blocks I believe. 0.3.3.x -> 0.4.x eliminated the major sources of coin loss. As far as I can tell, nobody who has used exclusively the 0.4.x series has lost coins (some scares, but people have always been able to use the backup features to recover their coins - including situations where 0.3.3.3 would have definitely destroyed coins.).

Thanks for jumping on board, we appreciate your support and your criticism. It helps us choose the most important things to fix/improve/develop.

Your correct, anyone running a open wallet can also set the amount of hard drive storage they wish to dedicate to SIA, with very little knowledge or effort. And get paid a little SIA for doing so. The issue now however, is opening the 2 required ports. That does require a little geekness" as it has to be done manually. Upcoming versions will have UPnP so opening the ports for hosting will not be an issue then. Taek correct me if I am wrong there.  

0.4.x series features UPnP

[Malibusparky]

I can also see a point in time where company's/individuals would be willing to pay even more for SIA services because of its anonymity. That could possibly cause demand for SIA as the preferred way to cloud host. So really the sky is the limit. But I don't feel the in the early days we can be more expensive per dollar/GH

Exactly what I was going to say after reading your first paragraph.

[Malibusparky]

To clarify my opinion. Criticism constructive or not is crucial for development.

But many following the thread are tired of hearing the same irrelevant ones. We wish new users would think before posting.

But anyway new users are the lifeblood of any project. But I think Sia over the next 2 years will be so big and important it will be one

of the first cryptos where users will need us more than vice versa.

[MinermanNC]

I can also see a point in time where company's/individuals would be willing to pay even more for SIA services because of its anonymity. That could possibly cause demand for SIA as the preferred way to cloud host. So really the sky is the limit. But I don't feel the in the early days we can be more expensive per dollar/GH

Exactly what I was going to say after reading your first paragraph.

lol, when we reach that point with SIA ill be glad I invested in coins and have tried to stay on top of SIA development. I just think this concept and having an exclusively mined coin to pay for the storage service is so cool.   Its full circle.

It will have its own full blown global SIA economy from start to finish. I see the buy orders are building back up again too....

[MinermanNC]

To clarify my opinion. Criticism constructive or not is crucial for development.

But many following the thread are tired of hearing the same irrelevant ones. We wish new users would think before posting.

But anyway new users are the lifeblood of any project. But I think Sia over the next 2 years will be so big and important it will be one

of the first cryptos where users will need us more than vice versa.

Ah don't sweat it" I guess it goes with the territory. I have to bite my tongue a lot when following this thread.   as well as others in the past. Its just the nature of bitcointalk

Isn't it nice to have a great dev like Taek who is always addressing our concerns and doing his best to answer questions and keeps us informed  

[Moebius327]

We try to keep all of the important information here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zNpAct53E_5p4KO3_-ZOrg5N9HQw8ACTQ7zAyksSIf8

You guys should put this link in OP. That's where most of the newcomers are looking.

[fonzerrellie]

yes it deff should be, I'll give it a read tonight... I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this is all put together 

newb Q... is there pos reward at all ?

[MinermanNC]

yes it deff should be, I'll give it a read tonight... I'm still trying to wrap my head around how this is all put together  

newb Q... is there pos reward at all ?

Once you do you will love this concept. I hardly spend anytime anywhere else these days lol.... I still scrypt mine alts but not much to talk about there... same old same old" that's why SIA is so refreshing and interesting even with the growing pains!

Oh and no pos (proof of stake) that I am aware of anyways lol

[akaman]

We try to keep all of the important information here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zNpAct53E_5p4KO3_-ZOrg5N9HQw8ACTQ7zAyksSIf8

You guys should put this link in OP. That's where most of the newcomers are looking.

+1

I do not recall coming across this document, but then again I have not read through the entire thread yet. It should definitely be upfront there with links to website, FAQ etc.

Also, consider linking to the Reddit page:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Siacoin

I don't know who's running that, but it might lighten the load off this thread when newcomers have alternative forums to ask their questions.

I was thinking today of setting up a Sia Wiki, aka the Bitcoin Wiki. I know the Siacoin.com website is on Github, but it has the appearance of a company rather than a community site.

What are your thoughts on this?

[akaman]

I can also see a point in time where company's/individuals would be willing to pay even more for SIA services because of its anonymity.

Can you elaborate on how SIA (or: Sia?) provides anonymity to hosters and/or renters?

What I understand of SIA thus far is that hosted files are split and encrypted. But this is not the same as anonymity.

The list of hosts, with their IPs, is publicly accessible. Similarly, I understand transactions on the blockchain are transparent. Thus, transactions on the blockchain are pseudanonymous, not strictly anonymous.