Going to build a new node.

[philipma1957]

I grabbed 2

2tb ssd's at Best Buy

I have this pc

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175781965244

one with the exact specs above.

I will do a fresh install onto a 2tb ssd.


I will download full blockchain to the ssd.

I will clone the ssd to the second ssd and to a 4gb western digital hdd.


Should cost me only for the ssd's as I have the pc and the hdd.

[1714775951]

1714775951

[1714775951]

1714775951

[LoyceV]

I will clone the ssd to the second ssd and to a 4gb western digital hdd.

But why?
I only backup data that I can't easily download again, and if you make it a "hot clone", software glitches mean you lose all data on both drives.

[LoyceV]

I doubt glitch would make you lose data on both drive since the software supposed to perform read-only operation on 1st device, unless the software is badly written.

I meant "glitches" including anything from malware to accidentally deleting data by yourself. That's why I prefer multiple backups that aren't connected at the same time.

[PawGo]

I will clone the ssd to the second ssd and to a 4gb western digital hdd.

Did you just reinvent RAID?

[paid2]

Did you just reinvent RAID?

That's what I was going to ask when I read your thread.

Why not just use RAID?

I don't think the BIOS of your Optiplex 7060 offers this, but there is a way to use an external card, which isn't very expensive. This would save you a lot of work, ok it takes longer to set up, but then you don't have to do anything else.

[DireWolfM14]

I will clone the ssd to the second ssd and to a 4gb western digital hdd.

But why?
I only backup data that I can't easily download again, and if you make it a "hot clone", software glitches mean you lose all data on both drives.

I rebuilt one of my nodes recently due to a software glitch unrelated to Bitcoin Core, so I thought I would save some time by using tar to backup the blockchain onto an external drive before purging the drive in the machine.  Something about the backup was corrupted in the process, and caused me to dick around with my core settings for an hour before I suspected that the blockchain directory may have been at fault.  Sure enough, I purged the blockchain files, reset my systemd service file and my config file to their original state, and bam it's working.  After all that, I realized I wasted the time that it took to backup the blockchain, the time it took to restore the blockchain, and the hour of dicking around with my settings.  So, yeah, it was all for nothing.

[philipma1957]

I have a hard ssd/hdd cloning machine.

The argument would be that the first drive dies while cloning it on my cloning machine.

The machine is stand alone and on an ups it is super reliable. It will also do a compare after the actual clone.

The reason I am doing this is I no longer want my trezor to be my main storage device.

I have 3 dell 7060  one will be an active node

One  will be a cold wallet

the third will be  a pc back up for either  node.

I have a good set of places to store  two of these pc's and a separate place to store the back up drives.

[Cricktor]

I see no point to clone data that is more or less readily available to re-download again within a reasonable amount of time. It might only make sense if you need to be ready with all data available within a short amount of time. As others already said, there're only rare cases where cloning the blockchain data makes sense or has a use for it (e.g. deploy a second node without the need to make a full IBD again for that node).

To my knowledge a Bitcoin node doesn't benefit much of a RAID setup, but I assume that wasn't your intention anyway.

A backup scheme and having data storage devices for that is never a mistake. For that there are some options available. I like to use Macrium Reflect for that. You can use an imaging mode or file based backups. A full image backup as a starting point and from there incremental backups will be fast and small. From time to time you consolidate the incremental backups chain to a new full image backup from which a new incremental backup chain can emerge.

[LoyceV]

The reason I am doing this is I no longer want my trezor to be my main storage device.

I have 3 dell 7060  one will be an active node

One  will be a cold wallet

the third will be  a pc back up for either  node.

I still don't see the point of cloning the disks: if your original contains a hot wallet, the clone can never be a cold wallet. And if you use a cold wallet for signing, it won't need access to the full blockchain. It's easier that way, but much more work to keep your offline blockchain up to date. Only transfering a signed message from your hot wallet to your cold wallet (and back after signing) is much easier to maintain.

[philipma1957]

okay so I have 1 node/wallet done using bitcore 25.

lets go the route that I only want a cold wallet.


I don't want a seed style for back up.

have just 1 copy of core and wallet dat on 1 pc turned off is not acceptable.

So Joyce how would you back up this core offline wallet.

3 clones of the ssd would seem to be good to me.

Or am I missing something.


Lets say
new core
new wallet
new address
pass word to open it.

clone 3 copies.

I know I could just copy wallet.dat

but I rather have 3 copies of the working drive.

or am I over thinking how to safe guard the wallet.

I do not want a hardware wallet.

I guess electrum could be an option

[NotATether]

I doubt glitch would make you lose data on both drive since the software supposed to perform read-only operation on 1st device, unless the software is badly written.

I meant "glitches" including anything from malware to accidentally deleting data by yourself. That's why I prefer multiple backups that aren't connected at the same time.

Usually the latter is more likely to happen especially if you are using dd command and you fudge the output block device name.

okay so I have 1 node/wallet done using bitcore 25.

lets go the route that I only want a cold wallet.


I don't want a seed style for back up.

have just 1 copy of core and wallet dat on 1 pc turned off is not acceptable.

So Joyce how would you back up this core offline wallet.

3 clones of the ssd would seem to be good to me.

Or am I missing something.


Lets say
new core
new wallet
new address
pass word to open it.

clone 3 copies.

I know I could just copy wallet.dat

but I rather have 3 copies of the working drive.

or am I over thinking how to safe guard the wallet.

I do not want a hardware wallet.

I guess electrum could be an option

An Electrum personal server such as EPS and Electrs can be hosted on the PC running Bitcoin Core, and then from another PC that is airgapped from the internet but on the same LAN as the other PC (required so that you can send transactions), you can run electrum and use the IP address of the Bitcoin Core PC as your electrum server.

But if you don't want to dink around with electrum there is a way to run Bitcoin Core offline, see this wiki for details: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/How_to_set_up_a_secure_offline_savings_wallet#Setting_up_an_offline_wallet_from_scratch

[LoyceV]

So Joyce how would you back up this core offline wallet.

I've been known by many names

3 clones of the ssd would seem to be good to me.

Or am I missing something.

It seems excessive to me.

clone 3 copies.
I know I could just copy wallet.dat
but I rather have 3 copies of the working drive.
or am I over thinking how to safe guard the wallet.

I'd just copy the wallet.dat, and of course make multiple copies. Password protect the wallet before making a backup, and make backups before funding the wallet. Even better if you actually test restoring one of the backups and verify it produces the same addresses (being thorough gives me peace of mind).
I prefer to use different brands and types of external storage media for my backups, just in case on of the drives/sticks doesn't last long.

[serveria.com]

I grabbed 2

2tb ssd's at Best Buy

I have this pc

https://www.ebay.com/itm/175781965244

one with the exact specs above.

I will do a fresh install onto a 2tb ssd.


I will download full blockchain to the ssd.

I will clone the ssd to the second ssd and to a 4gb western digital hdd.


Should cost me only for the ssd's as I have the pc and the hdd.

Good choice, HP OptiPlexes are pretty solid, although specs look a bit like an overkill to me. I guess it's a mini-itx case are you sure it can accomodate 2 ssd drives?