So, for a very long time, I wanted to run a full node myself to contribute to the bitcoin network. I had a very low space on SSD, but enough space on HDD. However, I read that downloading the whole blockchain using only HDD could be problematic as it might take days, and probably never fully catch up with the network, but I still wanted to try it myself.
I installed the Bitcoin core client, and tried to sync the blockchain only to HDD, but after 10 minutes found out that the expected sync time would be 4 days, which is way too much.
So, I decided that I need to split the blockchain between SSD and HDD. After splitting, the expected sync time dropped to 9 hours, so in 15 hours I finally had a fully synced blockchain on my PC.
How I did that? Here are the steps I followed:
1. Download and install the Bitcoin core client from the official website.
https://bitcoin.org/en/download 2. After installation, you choose where the Bitcoin Core is going to be stored (wallet, and whole blockchain). Choose HDD (in my case it's 'F:/ disk') and press OK.
3. Let the client run for a few minutes until it creates necessary folders and downloads all necessary files. Close the client (wait until it fully closes).
4. Create a new folder in your SSD (in my case it is 'C:\Users\user\Bitcoin')
5. Go back to HDD where your wallet & blockchain is located. Backup the whole folder in case something goes wrong. From there you will need two folders: '
chainstate' and '
blocks\index'. Copy and paste them into SSD folder you created ('C:\Users\user\Bitcoin' in my case) and delete those folders from HDD.
6. Press
Shift + Right mouse on Bitcoin folder in HDD and choose '
Open command window here'.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FAXHb2Vq.jpg&t=665&c=dO1xgNpZfuTIfg)
7. Type: '
mklink /j chainstate C:\Users\user\Bitcoin\chainstate' and press 'Enter'. You should see the message '
Junction created for chainstate <<===>> C:\Users\user\Bitcoin\chainstate'.
8. Do the same with second folder, type:
'mklink /j blocks\index C:\Users\user\Bitcoin\blocks\index'.
9. Now both folders should appear in your HDD disk and it should look like this.
![](https://ip.bitcointalk.org/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FMmKMiqZ.jpg&t=665&c=Wyz14KLojfBnWw)
10. And we're done, start Bitcoin core client and let it sync.
Folders in SSD will take about 3-4GB of space and the whole blockchain(~170GB) will stay in HDD.