Raspberry Pi 2 Node

[ColderThanIce]

However, would it be possible to store it on a PC and on a NAS, as a kind of backup.

Storing a backup of the blockchain on a NAS would be possible, yes, however it might be a bit of a pain copying 60GB worth of data to the NAS every few days or week, if you want to back it up that often. You could look at an incremental backup scheme (only backing up changes since the previous backup) and that would speed up backing up the blockchain. I'm not so sure I'd bother backing up the Bitcoin blockchain at all, just because it seem like Bitcoin-Qt doesn't corrupt the blockchain very often, and even if it does, there are re-scan and re-index options built into Bitcoin-Qt to attempt recovery of a corrupt blockchain. In the worst case, you'd just need to re-download the blockchain which would probably take a day or two, and then you'd be back up and running.

[Erkallys]

However, would it be possible to store it on a PC and on a NAS, as a kind of backup.

Storing a backup of the blockchain on a NAS would be possible, yes, however it might be a bit of a pain copying 60GB worth of data to the NAS every few days or week, if you want to back it up that often. You could look at an incremental backup scheme (only backing up changes since the previous backup) and that would speed up backing up the blockchain. I'm not so sure I'd bother backing up the Bitcoin blockchain at all, just because it seem like Bitcoin-Qt doesn't corrupt the blockchain very often, and even if it does, there are re-scan and re-index options built into Bitcoin-Qt to attempt recovery of a corrupt blockchain. In the worst case, you'd just need to re-download the blockchain which would probably take a day or two, and then you'd be back up and running.

This is in your case mate ! For me, it would more like a week or two . I'm not the owner of an high-quality connection ...

[ColderThanIce]

However, would it be possible to store it on a PC and on a NAS, as a kind of backup.

Storing a backup of the blockchain on a NAS would be possible, yes, however it might be a bit of a pain copying 60GB worth of data to the NAS every few days or week, if you want to back it up that often. You could look at an incremental backup scheme (only backing up changes since the previous backup) and that would speed up backing up the blockchain. I'm not so sure I'd bother backing up the Bitcoin blockchain at all, just because it seem like Bitcoin-Qt doesn't corrupt the blockchain very often, and even if it does, there are re-scan and re-index options built into Bitcoin-Qt to attempt recovery of a corrupt blockchain. In the worst case, you'd just need to re-download the blockchain which would probably take a day or two, and then you'd be back up and running.

This is in your case mate ! For me, it would more like a week or two . I'm not the owner of an high-quality connection ...

If it would take you a week or two to download the entire blockchain you should reconsider running a node on that connection. I suspect you have a fairly low upload speed as well, so running a node on that network wouldn't benefit the Bitcoin network much at all.

[Erkallys]

However, would it be possible to store it on a PC and on a NAS, as a kind of backup.

Storing a backup of the blockchain on a NAS would be possible, yes, however it might be a bit of a pain copying 60GB worth of data to the NAS every few days or week, if you want to back it up that often. You could look at an incremental backup scheme (only backing up changes since the previous backup) and that would speed up backing up the blockchain. I'm not so sure I'd bother backing up the Bitcoin blockchain at all, just because it seem like Bitcoin-Qt doesn't corrupt the blockchain very often, and even if it does, there are re-scan and re-index options built into Bitcoin-Qt to attempt recovery of a corrupt blockchain. In the worst case, you'd just need to re-download the blockchain which would probably take a day or two, and then you'd be back up and running.

This is in your case mate ! For me, it would more like a week or two . I'm not the owner of an high-quality connection ...

If it would take you a week or two to download the entire blockchain you should reconsider running a node on that connection. I suspect you have a fairly low upload speed as well, so running a node on that network wouldn't benefit the Bitcoin network much at all.

The case is a bit more complex. My connection is theorically good, but in the day, the bandwich is really low. However, the night, it is fine. Along the possibility for me to store my bitcoins and don't be tempted by using them like I sadly do often, I'll also help the community, at least the night.

[unamis76]

Is it possible to attach a screen to the Pi 2 and have it run information like the bitnodes hardware did? Their LCD code is here, how would one use this to have information being presented on screen?

[Erkallys]

Is it possible to attach a screen to the Pi 2 and have it run information like the bitnodes hardware did? Their LCD code is here, how would one use this to have information being presented on screen?

Yes, this is possible. Some specially designed screen are available on diverse website on the web. I think that they have to be connected to the 40-pin GPIO port, but I'm not sure at 100%.

[unamis76]

Is it possible to attach a screen to the Pi 2 and have it run information like the bitnodes hardware did? Their LCD code is here, how would one use this to have information being presented on screen?

Yes, this is possible. Some specially designed screen are available on diverse website on the web. I think that they have to be connected to the 40-pin GPIO port, but I'm not sure at 100%.

I know that there are screens and that they can be attached to the GPIO port, but my question is more software related: if I attach one of those screen how would I get on about making it work like it did on the bitnodes hardware?

[BlockSense]

Pi2 is a great device and I've been actively looking for others that support analog input. Intel Edison has been another one i've experimenting with.

[smaxz]

http://www.geek.com/chips/raspberry-pi-zero-cluster-in-development-1645823/

Beowulf cluster of piZero running a full bitcoin node ftw

[DuddlyDoRight]

60GB bytes at 20MBps avg(USB 2.0)? 00:30:00-00:45:00

WIFI storage with a SATA 802.11N enclosure is faster by tens of megabytes/minutes.

[whizz94]

Is there any reason one could not run a full bitcoin node on a Raspberry Pi 2? I see these are very cheap now, just $37. Add a 32GB SD card and you have a fully functioning node right?

Not a chance.  I tried that last summer while the blockchain was still less than 40GB and after a month it still had not synched and burned out the usb storage, presumably from too many rw cycles while doing the rather busy -reindex.
Now on my other computer my /.bitcoin/ is >67GB and still growing.

Feb 2016 specs for a full node;
minimum:
>=2GHz x 4core cpu such as an intel i5
>=2GB RAM
>=80 GB HDD presently used and sure to grow

recommended:
>=4GB RAM
>=160 GB HDD preferably SSD for speed and rw


What does work with a raspberry pi is
- electrum bitcoin wallet
- various altcoin full nodes

[unamis76]

http://www.geek.com/chips/raspberry-pi-zero-cluster-in-development-1645823/

Beowulf cluster of piZero running a full bitcoin node ftw

That would be really cool, but probably not really cost-effective

Is there any reason one could not run a full bitcoin node on a Raspberry Pi 2? I see these are very cheap now, just $37. Add a 32GB SD card and you have a fully functioning node right?

Not a chance.  I tried that last summer while the blockchain was still less than 40GB and after a month it still had not synched and burned out the usb storage, presumably from too many rw cycles while doing the rather busy -reindex.
Now on my other computer my /.bitcoin/ is >67GB and still growing.

Feb 2016 specs for a full node;
minimum:
>=2GHz x 4core cpu such as an intel i5
>=2GB RAM
>=80 GB HDD presently used and sure to grow

recommended:
>=4GB RAM
>=160 GB HDD preferably SSD for speed and rw


What does work with a raspberry pi is
- electrum bitcoin wallet
- various altcoin full nodes

Well, if you check this thread and feedback online you can see one can indeed run a Bitcoin node on a Raspberry Pi 2. Definitely not the most powerful node, but it works.

[rikrikrik]

Well 0.12 is due soon and you can run a pruned node, so that's only 2Gb

I was almost running a full node on my zero but it's 2 much for my 64gb sd card and my portable hdd is busy in another project