software/file maintenance

[bkelly]

I see that installing the software requires downloading the full transaction chain.  That implies that my copy must be updated.  How often must my system be updated?  How many bytes a day?  What if my computer is offline for a day or even a month?  How long to catch up for a day or month offline?

[casinocoin]

I see that installing the software requires downloading the full transaction chain.  That implies that my copy must be updated.  How often must my system be updated?  How many bytes a day?  What if my computer is offline for a day or even a month?  How long to catch up for a day or month offline?

Sizes: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transactions

https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size

[bkelly]

The link told me that a blockchain size is about 16K bytes, and constantly increasing, almost tripling in the last year.  How many are created on a typical day?  Or better, how many will my computer need to download a day (on average, ball park guess) to stay up to date?

[vpitcher07]

THe blockchain is a ledger of every transaction in the history of bitcoin. Once you have downloaded all the previous confirmed transactions (blocks), you will continue to download them as miners find more, about every 10 minutes. I'm not sure the size of 1 block but I dont believe its very big at all. The initial download of the blockchain is the worst part about bitcoin, everything else after it is smooth sailing.

[DeathAndTaxes]

https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size?timespan=1year&showDataPoints=false&daysAverageString=1&show_header=true&scale=0&address=

The blockchain is currently increasing at ~1GB per month.  Currently there is a cap on the size of blocks @ 1MB ea.  If all blocks were 1MB the blockchain would be increasing by ~4GB per month.  If/when the cap is raised it could be much more than that.

As an alternative, there are "lite" clients which don't require the full blockchain.