Test results for running a full node VPS during the tx spam

[BombaUcigasa]

Here are some results of my first day running a full Bitcoin node on DigitalOcean.com. Unfortunately, it is not possible to run a full node on the $20/mo instance, you need the $40/mo 60Gb VM Debian image.

* Download the Linux binary from bitcoin.org (it's an old 0.10.2 version)
* Let it sync (this takes more than a day on two cores, over 40Gb of data to check)
* Reboot once and run it for a day
* Disk usage settles at 50GB or so
* Memory usage will grow to fill up to 60GB, but at least 1GB is enough for normal operations
* CPU has a very low demand but usage spikes around high tx traffic, otherwise it averages 8% of ~3GHz
* Load is slightly higher than expected, mainly due to running munin in the background
* Network traffic averages 300kbit down and 64kbit up, very light as the connection can handle 60Mbit
* Unconfigured node connected to about 22 peers
* The biggest slowdown is the storage, but with SSD this is greatly reduced

In summary: bitcoin-core is just as painful to sync as it was last year even with growing technological advancements (something we need to fix specifically for Bitcoin), the memory usage is a bit higher than expected, CPU is mostly sleeping but it is needed to relay transactions quickly and the network is absolutely no reason to worry about (from my perspective). While I was expecting to get by using only 20 dollars, we need to look for cheaper providers to accommodate the blockchain or switch to slow boring HDD.

There are no special settings for relay fees or other settings (although my node banned only blockchain.info for spam). More live details:

* Bitnodes.io node status page
* Munin pages on the actual node

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[zvs]

those are some pretty nasty latency fluctuations.  why use digital ocean in netherlands if you're only running 25 connections, anyway?

https://www.clients.deepnetsolutions.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=206
https://www.clients.deepnetsolutions.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=209
https://www.clients.deepnetsolutions.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=212

2GB RAM
3GB Burst RAM
2x vCPU
150GB HDD space
1.5TB transfer
1Gbps uplink
1x IPv4
IPv6 available
OpenVZ/SolusVM
$5.50/month

and just because I want to use one of my affiliate links to counter your Digital Ocean one,  http://www.time4vps.eu/aff.php?aff=138 is in lithuania with:

Dedicated CPU: 2 x 2.40 GHz
RAM: 2048 MB
Storage: 80 GB
Bandwidth: 2 TB
Backups: Daily, Weekly

3.99 EUR Monthly
11.37 EUR Quarterly
21.55 EUR Semi-Annually
39.90 EUR Annually

i have used them before, they are fine

with digital ocean i guess you are paying $20/mo?  can you still squeeze that all in 40GB?      oh nm, I see, $40, lol.  good grief

for anyone that for some reason prefers to use things like digital ocean,  well,  vultr is cheaper and has a 45GB HDD option.  

i won't use a goo.gl link, but you can go to http://www.vultr.com/?ref=6809079 , then go to http://www.vultr.com/freetrial , and get $50 free credit.   YES, IT HAS TO BE IN THAT ORDER!!  (not rly, but...)

or http://www.iwstack.com/

i could edit this over, and over, and over...  i guess i'll leave it at that.  digital ocean costs about 8x more than you should be paying. 

[p3yot33at3r]

Good info - thanks.

RE:

.....(although my node banned only blockchain.info for spam)

Did you find doing this beneficial? I've been thinking of doing something like this myself......

[BombaUcigasa]

those are some pretty nasty latency fluctuations.  why use digital ocean in netherlands if you're only running 25 connections, anyway?

No idea why those happen, it might be a routing issue on the checkers. I don't limit the number of connections, once it reached 38 or so, as I said, I don't configure anything on this node.

150GB HDD space

There's your problem! It's shitty HDD slowing down your bitcoin experience!

and just because I want to use one of my affiliate links to counter your Digital Ocean one,  http://www.time4vps.eu/aff.php?aff=138 is in lithuania with:

You mean you wanted to write http://www.time4vps.eu/aff.php?aff=138 ?

It seems like a better deal, for example, more RAM, less CPU, exactly 60Gb is needed for a bitcoin node.

DigitalOcean offers two things that I like: SSD storage (really really important and a time-saver) and hourly billing (I will kill this VM after a few days).

.....(although my node banned only blockchain.info for spam)

Did you find doing this beneficial? I've been thinking of doing something like this myself......

Not sure, it just happened. It's the only banned node on my node.

PLEASE NOTE: It is important to understand that your Bitcoin security relies on the trustworthiness of your VPS provider and each and every one of their employees. Financial loss may occur if using private keys stored on such servers.

[BombaUcigasa]

I also added some charts for some extra bitcoind stats: http://188.166.81.128/bitcoin-day.html

[kvb]

Here are some results of my first day running a full Bitcoin node on /ULvXbd]DigitalOcean.com. Unfortunately, it is not possible to run a full node on the $20/mo instance, you need the $40/mo 60Gb VM Debian image.

If you use Debian, Why not try linode? They sit on SoftLayer network and latencies are good. They also have advantage for $40 you get
    4 GB RAM
    4 CPU Cores
    96 GB SSD Storage
    4 TB Transfer
    40 Gbit Network In
    500 Mbit Network Out

You also can check hetzner.de they also have good plans.

cheers.

[BombaUcigasa]

Here are some results of my first day running a full Bitcoin node on /ULvXbd]DigitalOcean.com. Unfortunately, it is not possible to run a full node on the $20/mo instance, you need the $40/mo 60Gb VM Debian image.

If you use Debian, Why not try linode? They sit on SoftLayer network and latencies are good.

There are many alternatives, but Linode just like DigitalOcean costs about $40/mo for the smallest required VPS for a Bitcoin node. Besides the storage space, everything else is sufficiently large.

[Quant]

I've started using this VPS recently instead of Linode:

https://coinshost.com/en/vps

~$15 per month (bitcoin payments accepted):
VPS-V3:
2.4 GHz Intel Xeon
2 CPU Core(s)
4096 MB RAM
60 GB of Storage
4 TB of Bandwidth
10 Gbit/s port

~$3 per month:
VPS-V0
2.4 GHz Intel Xeon
1 CPU Core(s)
512 MB RAM
20 GB of Storage
1 TB of Bandwidth
10 Gbit/s port

[BombaUcigasa]

New record, 120MB of transactions, usually it's 10 times lower, VPS still unaffected...