Hard drive for downloading the blockchain

[BADecker]

I just installed a 500 gig hard drive with its own OS, just for Bitcoin. The blockchain is over 130 gigs now. Imagine how big the hard drive will have to be when all the bitcoins are finally mined!

I know this has been mentioned in other threads. But is there any practical solution? Or are we simply going to have to hope that personal computing will keep up with Bitcoin demands in the future?

[Yakamoto]

I just installed a 500 gig hard drive with its own OS, just for Bitcoin. The blockchain is over 130 gigs now. Imagine how big the hard drive will have to be when all the bitcoins are finally mined!

I know this has been mentioned in other threads. But is there any practical solution? Or are we simply going to have to hope that personal computing will keep up with Bitcoin demands in the future?

If I'm correct, the blockchain grows in size when blocks go through, and those contribute to the growing size of the blockchain, not just the amount of Bitcoins that currently exist within the network.

As for there being a practical solution, there might be a need to prune some of the blockchain and archive it at some point, but right now we don't have to worry all that much. Chances are, though, that personal computers will continue to grow in storage space and we won't have to worry about running out of space. It'll just more come down to the time spent.

[BADecker]

I just installed a 500 gig hard drive with its own OS, just for Bitcoin. The blockchain is over 130 gigs now. Imagine how big the hard drive will have to be when all the bitcoins are finally mined!

I know this has been mentioned in other threads. But is there any practical solution? Or are we simply going to have to hope that personal computing will keep up with Bitcoin demands in the future?

If I'm correct, the blockchain grows in size when blocks go through, and those contribute to the growing size of the blockchain, not just the amount of Bitcoins that currently exist within the network.

As for there being a practical solution, there might be a need to prune some of the blockchain and archive it at some point, but right now we don't have to worry all that much. Chances are, though, that personal computers will continue to grow in storage space and we won't have to worry about running out of space. It'll just more come down to the time spent.

However, as Bitcoin comes mainstream, there will be an exponential growth rate in the number of transactions. It could hit fast. Are we ready? Is this the real reason for mining fees, to keep Bitcoin from going mainstream too fast, because of its future blockchain size?

[Emoclaw]

Personal computing will definitely scale to meet the demands of running a full node. And even if it doesn't, server storage is there. Right now you can get a petabyte of storage for less than $100k.

As for there being a practical solution, there might be a need to prune some of the blockchain and archive it at some point, but right now we don't have to worry all that much. Chances are, though, that personal computers will continue to grow in storage space and we won't have to worry about running out of space. It'll just more come down to the time spent.

The blockchain itself cannot be pruned.
But since Bitcoin Core 0.11.0, you can prune the blockchain database you have stored (basically automatically remove older blocks after a certain size).
This defeats the purpose of running a full node, because you're not serving historical blocks and therefore not participating in network health.

[amacar2]

But is there any practical solution? Or are we simply going to have to hope that personal computing will keep up with Bitcoin demands in the future?

Disk spaces are way cheaper than in past and we can hope even cheaper HDD in future so blockchain  size may not matter much in future. 1 TB HDD only cost around 50$ right now and i think that will be enough to run bitcoin node for next 5-10 years or even more.

[Pattberry]

I just installed a 500 gig hard drive with its own OS, just for Bitcoin. The blockchain is over 130 gigs now. Imagine how big the hard drive will have to be when all the bitcoins are finally mined!
I know this has been mentioned in other threads. But is there any practical solution? Or are we simply going to have to hope that personal computing will keep up with Bitcoin demands in the future?

The technology is changing and there will be a time when hard disk space wont have any restrictions and there will be more advancement in the storage space technology in the future,the block chain size will increase with time and by the you have to understand that the hard disk prices are getting lower too,so it wont be a big issue .