My Journey To Syncing The Bitcoin Core Wallet 0.21.0

[Bytecoiner419]

Hello everyone. I'm an old school bitcoiner from back in the day and I recently decided to sync up my core wallet to get the coins off the wallet file but I also want to run a full node hence why im syncing the entire Blockchain and I just wanted to document my journey syncing the chain.

I have had the wallet running now 24/7 for about 6 days and this is how far I am...



My Tip To Make It A Little Faster:

First, close your wallet.

 Go to: https://btc.cryptoid.info/btc/#!network  

And click the "Node list" button by the latest version of the satoshi wallet (core wallet)

it will show a list of IP's like this:



Copy the entire list and then go to: https://jlopp.github.io/bitcoin-core-config-generator/

Then scroll down the options to "Networking" and paste the list of IP's in the "connect to peer" box.

Then by the top right it will have a button to "download config file" (looks like a black cloud)


Now take that bitcoin.conf file and move it to this folder: C/Users/YOURNAME/AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin/

Now open the bitcoin core wallet and it should connect to more peers.

*I repeat this step each day to give the wallet an updated list of peers to connect to.


I will post updates as my wallet get closer to being synced.  

[1715244685]

1715244685

[free-bit.co.in]

What is your internet download speed?

It's been a few years since I had played with downloading the full BTC blockchain in Bitcoin core wallet. But, I remember that amount of RAM also played a important part. Because the Core wallet doesn't only download the blockchain BUT it also VERIFIES IT IN THE SAME TIME.

Try to search in the forum for the instructions how to allow the Core wallet to use more RAM. Doing it on the SSD disk would also be a good idea.

[Bytecoiner419]

What is your internet download speed?

It's been a few years since I had played with downloading the full BTC blockchain in Bitcoin core wallet. But, I remember that amount of RAM also played a important part. Because the Core wallet doesn't only download the blockchain BUT it also VERIFIES IT IN THE SAME TIME.

Try to search in the forum for the instructions how to allow the Core wallet to use more RAM. Doing it on the SSD disk would also be a good idea.

HOLY SH*T, Your referral link for freebitcoin is #86 

and I thought I was early with around 500K 

Thanks for the tips. 

[free-bit.co.in]

What is your internet download speed?

It's been a few years since I had played with downloading the full BTC blockchain in Bitcoin core wallet. But, I remember that amount of RAM also played a important part. Because the Core wallet doesn't only download the blockchain BUT it also VERIFIES IT IN THE SAME TIME.

Try to search in the forum for the instructions how to allow the Core wallet to use more RAM. Doing it on the SSD disk would also be a good idea.

HOLY SH*T, Your referral link for freebitcoin is #86 

and I thought I was early with around 500K 

Thanks for the tips. 

Yep, I was among the first to join it and promote it.

https://bitcoin.stackexchange.com/questions/58369/sync-with-bitcoin-qt-very-slow-0-01 (Here are some tips too if it helps)

Thanks for the merits! 

[HCP]

Bottlenecks for syncing of Bitcoin Core are usually:

1. HDD instead of SDD. Due to the way Bitcoin Core, there is a lot of reading/writing from/to disk during sync. HDDs are orders of magnitude slower than SDD... storing the blocks (or at least the "chainstate") on SDD will significantly boost sync speed.


2. Low RAM. If you don't have much RAM, Bitcoin Core needs to write out to disk more often... which will exacerbate any storage device speed bottlenecks as per #1. If you have a lot of RAM, or you're not using your machine for anything else while Bitcoin Core syncs, you can set the dbcache value to at least half of your system's total RAM amount. This gives Bitcoin Core more room to store temp data in RAM rather than reading/writing to disk. You can set this within Bitcoin Core GUI in the "Settings -> Options -> Main" tab:

(As you can see, it defaults to 450MB)

or you can use the dbcache parameter in your bitcoin.conf file:

Code:

dbcache=xxxx

Where XXXX is "half your total ram" in Megabytes... ie. 4096 = 4Gigs, 8192 = 8 Gigs. 16384 = 16 gigs etc.


3. Low-end CPU. There is a lot of processing involved with validating all the blocks etc... a low end CPU will slow this down


4. Low bandwidth. It's a total of ~350Gigs of data to download... if your internet is super slow, this will impact the syncing rate. It's generally not as much of a bottleneck as the other 3 points, unless you're still on dial-up or your ISP is throttling your connection due to bandwidth restrictions etc.


5. No peers. Generally not a huge issue for the vast majority of users, but if you're not seeing any connections on the "Window -> Information" screen, then it's possible that your connection is blocked (check firewall settings etc).

[ranochigo]

I synchronized my Bitcoin Core the other day and it took roughly about 16 hours or so to complete. The main bottleneck in my case was with my HDD, the ram was saturated at about 3GB with the larger dbcache configuration. It will appear to stagnant after awhile before the dbcache gets flushed and it was quite a sporadic progress in general. If you have an SSD and with sufficient space, you can synchronize it there first and move it to a HDD with a symlink or something similar.

You'll know what your main bottleneck is. If you increase the dbcache, you'll see that the ram usage will steadily climb and you can check whether the internet connection, ram or disk drive is heavily utilized. I would assume that Core can slow down even more after you get pass the assumevalid threshold.

[pooya87]

Go to: https://btc.cryptoid.info/btc/#!network 
And click the "Node list" button by the latest version of the satoshi wallet (core wallet)

I honestly don't see any benefits in doing this, specially since most of the times the websites that list bitcoin nodes advertise spy nodes rather than decent nodes run by individuals that could be used for syncing.
Finding other peers is a very simple process and your node should be able to do it on its own and never even come close to running out of having good peers to connect to. It also measures your latency with those peers and can even prefer one with a better latency for a better experience.

[Carlton Banks]

My Tip To Make It A Little Faster:

First, close your wallet.

 Go to: https://btc.cryptoid.info/btc/#!network  

And click the "Node list" button by the latest version of the satoshi wallet (core wallet)

it will show a list of IP's like this:



Copy the entire list and then go to: https://jlopp.github.io/bitcoin-core-config-generator/

Then scroll down the options to "Networking" and paste the list of IP's in the "connect to peer" box.

Then by the top right it will have a button to "download config file" (looks like a black cloud)


Now take that bitcoin.conf file and move it to this folder: C/Users/YOURNAME/AppData/Roaming/Bitcoin/

Now open the bitcoin core wallet and it should connect to more peers.

*I repeat this step each day to give the wallet an updated list of peers to connect to.

none of that is necessary, it will not speed up sync in any meaningful way



the Bitcoin software will get a longer list of peer IPs of other nodes on the network from Bitcoin seeders (mostly the seeders are run by the Bitcoin developers), and then other nodes you connect to give you gossip about nodes on the network to connect to, replacing the seeders' role (really the seeders should be rarely needed, they're only required when you start your node up for the first time)

placing <connect=> blocks in your Bitcoin config comes with a risk: if you use 1 list of nodes from a single website, that website might be supplying you with a list of malicious nodes. This could be used to cut your node off from the rest of the honest participating nodes on the Bitcoin network (to disrupt or censor your transactions), or possibly even to feed you with a fake blockchain (to waste your time).


If the Bitcoin software cannot find good nodes for you to sync from, it's because there's a problem with the software. I've been doing this for a while, and that's never been the problem with syncing speed.

The problems generally are:

• computer CPU speed
• size of Bitcoin's cache (and the amount of RAM available to put that cache into)
• internet speed

even a fast computer with fast internet might take a day or two to sync the whole blockchain

[Bytecoiner419]

Thanks for the info everyone.

I had an error in the database and had to re index the entire blockchain.

It is going much faster (until it catches back up I think)

[Bytecoiner419]

I'm just letting this wallet take its time and sync up because it is on a portable SSD but by doing this it has made me decide to get a much nicer computer in the near future...time for an upgrade. 

[Bytecoiner419]

little update:

I'm finally past the point I was at before the Blockchain had to be reindexed.

patience is key. 

[Bytecoiner419]

Almost there. I'm about to start seeing my deposits hit as it gets closer to being synced.



I cant wait.

[Bytecoiner419]

Just an update on progress...

[HCP]

This has truly been a labour of love!

What CPU/RAM are you using for this? You said earlier you were using a portable SSD, is that correct?

[Bytecoiner419]

This has truly been a labour of love!

What CPU/RAM are you using for this? You said earlier you were using a portable SSD, is that correct?

Its an old dell laptop.  



I'm running the wallet and putting the blockchain files on an old 1TB Seagate portable SSD connected to my usb.

Might upgrade once this wallet is synced.

Not selling all.. just a little.

I'm in for the long run.

Note: I'm also using a 16Gb flashdrive as a readyboost to give a ram boost.

[cyberninja2]

nice I also want to install it to store my btc but with my only little BTC0.05 is not worth an effort 

[Bytecoiner419]

nice I also want to install it to store my btc but with my only little BTC0.05 is not worth an effort 

In the future, only the rich could afford to hold 0.05 BTC    HODL

[HCP]

Its an old dell laptop.  
...
I'm running the wallet and putting the blockchain files on an old 1TB Seagate portable SSD connected to my usb.

I suspect the bottle neck will be the low RAM and the external SSD... I would wager that the USB port/controller isn't the best (likely USB2.0) and the throughput is probably quite low. The low core clock of the CPU probably isn't helping either.

Note: I'm also using a 16Gb flashdrive as a readyboost to give a ram boost.

Not sure if that is going to be helping or hindering or doing nothing... I've never been a fan of Readyboost... and it doesn't really boost your RAM... it is just part of a disk caching system (SuperFetch), that should theoretically be faster in some specific instances than using HDD-based disk caching.


Still, only a couple more days to go!

[Bytecoiner419]

Just an update:

[Bytecoiner419]

Synced at last, synced at last...

Thank God Almighty, I'm Synced At Last!