2TB or 4TB drive upgrade?

[LoyceV]

fries the 8GB of maxed out ram on this laptop.

You can still run it: the IBD will take a while, but after it's done, 8 GB RAM and SSD is more than enough to process 6 new blocks per hour.

[nc50lc]

As far as pruning, I wouldn't trust any node that does not include the full blockchain. Having a backup saves a lot of time.

FYI, full nodes with pruned blockchain don't just download a specific number of latest blocks by trusting their peers.
It downloads and verifies all the blocks from genesis as it creates its databases.
The difference is only the pruning part after it's done with the old blocks.
So you don't have to trust it since it verifies everything like a full node with non-pruned blockchain.

Here's a reference: /index.php?topic=5229380.msg53938029#msg53938029

Maybe there's another compelling reason why you don't prefer it?

[ABCbits]

There are more expensive laptops with open source BIOS but these older machines are well known in it's operation and the foundation base for Libreboot/Coreboot and at some point they will become unusable.

Have you ever research or consider device that use RISC-V chip/processor? Some of them likely to have more open firmware/BIOS than modern x86/arm CPU. Bitcoin Core these days also support RISC-V.

BIP110 was right in it's idea but the fork is just dumb so it is what it is.

It's more dumb than you may expect considering are efficient ways to add arbitrary data without violate BIP 110.

https://mempool.kilombino.com/tx/9c34287f805e622b86ac140ef10475750214cf60c3310441b9b9ea9f429bb1bc?showFlow=false&showDetails=true still benefit from witness discount and ignore BIP 110 by creating lots of OP_PUSHDATA1 [<256 bytes arbitary data]. Note this website automatically flag if the TX violate BIP 110, for example https://mempool.kilombino.com/tx/090cd53a6e0304d95a3f3483f8d1994c07c54cbb6e559f22c7c716cb048ee822.

[takuma sato]

As far as pruning, I wouldn't trust any node that does not include the full blockchain. Having a backup saves a lot of time.

FYI, full nodes with pruned blockchain don't just download a specific number of latest blocks by trusting their peers.
It downloads and verifies all the blocks from genesis as it creates its databases.
The difference is only the pruning part after it's done with the old blocks.
So you don't have to trust it since it verifies everything like a full node with non-pruned blockchain.

Here's a reference: /index.php?topic=5229380.msg53938029#msg53938029

Maybe there's another compelling reason why you don't prefer it?

In my experience, more often than not you will require to verify the entire blockchain from scratch for some reason. I don't remember exactly why but sometimes I needed to do that and if you use pruned mode you are going to need to download the data from scratch. The process is much faster if you keep a local copy of the full blockchain. Plus it's just feels good to know all the stuff since genesis block is there sitting on your drive. Also the last time I installed Bitcoin Core/Knots I saw they are using a given hash by default with assumevalid enabled with is quite lame since it's incentivizing people into not downloading the entire blockchain which is creating a new subset of nodes that are not as safe. And for your own sanity you should max out all settings that give you maximum reassurance, that is disabling assumevalid and prune for a proper node. That's the whole point of Bitcoin. If people start skipping blocks it's kind of a joke.

[nc50lc]

Maybe there's another compelling reason why you don't prefer it?

In my experience, more often than not you will require to verify the entire blockchain from scratch for some reason. I don't remember exactly why but sometimes I needed to do that and if you use pruned mode you are going to need to download the data from scratch.

I see, so this is the main reason I assume (which is more reasonable than the previous)

And yeah that happens if you do something that's requiring to rescan the blockchain
like rescanning private keys past the pruned blocks or rebuilding databases with "--reindex/--reindex-chainstate" in case something is corrupted during improper shutdown.

[philipma1957]

Maybe there's another compelling reason why you don't prefer it?

In my experience, more often than not you will require to verify the entire blockchain from scratch for some reason. I don't remember exactly why but sometimes I needed to do that and if you use pruned mode you are going to need to download the data from scratch.

I see, so this is the main reason I assume (which is more reasonable than the previous)

And yeah that happens if you do something that's requiring to rescan the blockchain
like rescanning private keys past the pruned blocks or rebuilding databases with "--reindex/--reindex-chainstate" in case something is corrupted during improper shutdown.

At the moment I have a few chain copies.

I usually let them slip back a few weeks and restart them.

I don't  run them all at the same time.

But now that ssd's are serious money I can't justify having more than 3 copies.

Only because I happen to have been running 3 on and off before price got high.

[Cricktor]

At the moment I host two copies of the full blockchain on two separate devices. One is my daily driver where a Bitcoin Core node runs in the background where I monitor a few watch-only wallets I'm interested in. The other Core full-node is on my Umbrel VM running on Virtualbox and soon to be migrated to a Proxmox environment. This Umbrel box hosts my personal Fulcrum Electrum server, local instances of BTC RPC Explorer, mempool.space, Vaultwarden, Stirling PDF and MeTube.

Actually, I have a third Bitcoin Core full node on a Raspi 4B with 8GiB RAM which had a minimal Raspibolt like setup using a 1TB HDD. A few weeks ago the 1TB storage filled up and the Core node stopped working. Before it ran out-of-space, it was just fine with the HDD, I didn't observe noticeable lagging compared to the other two nodes with run on SSD storage. (I didn't torture the poor ol' Raspi on HDD with an IBD before; I copied existing synced blockchain data from another full node.)

Oh, and probably my oldest more or less recent, well maybe not synced for more than a year or so, blockchain copy is also on another Raspi 4B which ran a RaspiBlitz node that shared the same out-of-space fate on a 1TB SSD as the Raspi above.

I know, I know, I need to consolidate stuff... 

[dkbit98]

That is way to expensive for both drives, and prices have gone up significantly in last few years, but larger SSD drives usually have longer life and bigger TBW.
I didn't have any issues with my Samsung drives and they usually are more expensive, but they are better in my opinion.
Maybe it's worth considering regular HDD drives, they are much cheaper now and you can put them in silencer box if you don't like the noise.

[NeuroticFish]

Maybe it's worth considering regular HDD drives, they are much cheaper now and you can put them in silencer box if you don't like the noise.

Exactly. And only keep indexes and chainstate on SSD if you want fast IBD.
I'd better suffer for a year or two on this kind of setup and for now move those dollars into Bitcoin.
Then buy a SSD if you want it so much.

[DireWolfM14]

I was wondering if I should invest in 2TB or assume that due AI capex things will only get more expensive and 4TB SSD would be a good long term buy.
~
At what rate is the Bitcoin blockchain to be predicted to grow in the following years given current events?

Memory prices are crazy, but I don't think the AI bubble is going to keep prices high for the long term.  Supply is already gearing up, and If demand doesn't subside, the supply will catch up eventually.  Having been in manufacturing all of my adult life I've seen these types of things happen over and over.  If history is any indicator, supply will increase and demand will decrease.  If I had to guess, prices are going to drop within a couple of years at the most.

About your current dilemma; to echo the sentiment of others, you'll get plenty of life out of a 2tb SSD.  I've had one running Umbrel with Core, Electrs, mempool, and Monero along with some other minor services, and it still has about 0.5tb of space left on it, which will be good for a long time to come.  Monero alone is .3tb, and it doesn't sound like you're running that. 

[philipma1957]

I just dug up an hp laptop it has 32gb ram and a 2 tb ssd in it.  I set it up with mint os

and I am running a new core on it as I type here..


This laptop has no wifi card I pulled it.

I does not come with an eth connection I use an adapter

ad the laptop has a long password

and the ssd is encrypted

and the core has a long passphrase

and an I5 12th gen cpu

[DaveF]

fries the 8GB of maxed out ram on this laptop.

You can still run it: the IBD will take a while, but after it's done, 8 GB RAM and SSD is more than enough to process 6 new blocks per hour.

Just did a test for the heck of it. 6th gen i5 *4* GB of ram 2TB ssd that is really old.

From a couple of hours of when you made this post till now. Still syncing, should be done when I get home from work. Shows 98% as of now but I have to run out the door to get to the office.

Base OS & core nothing else. Just took time.

-Dave

[LoyceV]

Just did a test for the heck of it. 6th gen i5 *4* GB of ram 2TB ssd that is really old.
From a couple of hours of when you made this post till now. Still syncing, should be done when I get home from work. Shows 98% as of now but I have to run out the door to get to the office.

Can you check how many TB was written to that SSD? I tried this a while ago with 8 GB RAM, and it wrote several TB already due to the lack of RAM.
I must say I'm surprised this takes 8-ish days. Assuming your internet speed isn't the limiting factor: do you have one of those SSDs with bad sustained write performance? You make me want to test this again.

[DaveF]

Just did a test for the heck of it. 6th gen i5 *4* GB of ram 2TB ssd that is really old.
From a couple of hours of when you made this post till now. Still syncing, should be done when I get home from work. Shows 98% as of now but I have to run out the door to get to the office.

Can you check how many TB was written to that SSD? I tried this a while ago with 8 GB RAM, and it wrote several TB already due to the lack of RAM.
I must say I'm surprised this takes 8-ish days. Assuming your internet speed isn't the limiting factor: do you have one of those SSDs with bad sustained write performance? You make me want to test this again.

It's a 10 year old system with an 8 or 9 year old SSD. Was not a great performer back then. Will see what I can see about writes when I get home, more likely over the weekend.

But, it was more of a proof that people who complain about they needed all this hardware to run a full node with core are either spouting BS or doing something wrong or at this point are using hardware that is more then a decade old.

Which TBF you should not be doing anyway unless you are prepared for the fact that 10 year old consumer hardware can just go 'poof' and have smoke come out of it for no reason other then it's that old. Server class / industrial hardware is better but still not much.

It's just the nature of what it is.

-Dave

[Forsyth Jones]

Luckily I bought my 02 Samsung 990 Pro SSDs around 2023 (before all this shit happened). I had bought one with a heatsink for my PS5 and another without it, but I made the mistake of selling my PS5 in 2024, and now it's more than double the price   I'm trying to see if I can get a used one... all to get GTA 6 at launch.

Regarding the one with the heatsink, I'm thinking of removing the heatsink to put the SSD without a heatsink in my notebook. This SSD with the heatsink also has 2TB, the one I'm currently using in my notebook to run Bitcoin Core already has 2TB of SSD and runs in a Linux environment, it will serve me well for at least 7 years...

I also have a 2TB SATA SSD for backups, currently I'm well served. Speaking of which, I need to resolve the issue of block and chainstate backups using the rsync tool on Linux, which @LoyceV taught me in a post months ago...

I should also try running an electrum server again using electrs or fulcrum, currently I only use Bitcoin Core or Sparrow connected to Core to connect directly to my node.

[LoyceV]

Which TBF you should not be doing anyway unless you are prepared for the fact that 10 year old consumer hardware can just go 'poof' and have smoke come out of it for no reason other then it's that old.

This isn't something I'm worried about. I've used old hardware, and the most likely things to break are the power cable, or the disk. But I do clean dust out of CPU fans regularly, and I never buy high wattage laptops.
I know it's a common thing for people to say not to run laptops continuously, but I've been doing that for many years without problems.

[stompix]

I just dug up an hp laptop it has 32gb ram and a 2 tb ssd in it.  I set it up with mint os

Hihi, that's like my old laptop I had for work, 5 years old, 650 series, that thing would have no problem running a node.
Also, you can get one with 1 TB cheaper than just the 2tb new ssd, not the i7 but for a node that won't matter.

Just did a test for the heck of it. 6th gen i5 *4* GB of ram 2TB ssd that is really old.
From a couple of hours of when you made this post till now. Still syncing, should be done when I get home from work. Shows 98% as of now but I have to run out the door to get to the office.
Base OS & core nothing else. Just took time.

I suspect the RAM to be more of a bottlneck that the rest, but if you were to use older gear then it's ddr3 so, not affected by the price right now if you want to slap an 8gb stick on top of that.

[dkbit98]

Which TBF you should not be doing anyway unless you are prepared for the fact that 10 year old consumer hardware can just go 'poof' and have smoke come out of it for no reason other then it's that old. Server class / industrial hardware is better but still not much.

Industrial level SSD drives are much better, but most drives these days have warranty period and estimated declared TBW.
This are not exact numbers but it gives you better picture what drives are using more quality components and should last longer.
I would also create dedicates space for over-provisioning to collect to collect garbage.

[LoyceV]

Industrial level SSD drives are much better

I've never tried it myself, but I've seen reports that enterprise SSDs have much shorter data retention when powered off compared to consumer SSDs. Enterprise drives are not designed to be turned off.

[takuma sato]

Maybe it's worth considering regular HDD drives, they are much cheaper now and you can put them in silencer box if you don't like the noise.

Exactly. And only keep indexes and chainstate on SSD if you want fast IBD.
I'd better suffer for a year or two on this kind of setup and for now move those dollars into Bitcoin.
Then buy a SSD if you want it so much.

Never tried this setup. I would prefer to have a single drive for the entire thing. How fast is your 2 drive HDD+SSD setup compared to full SSD?

Anyway the idea here is to have a clean as possible setup with the laptop for traveling, so plugin only one drive is more convenient than use 2 USB ports. Also more chances of accidentally moving a cable during operation and screwing up something. I think that setup would be good for desktop if you are on a budget. As for me I find HDDs too slow to use in general nowadays and only use them to store things since HDD is better for storage long term. You just have to plug them every 6 months and use them for a couple minutes and that's about it. They can last for decades if you are lucky (do backups just in case, I doubt if you have 4 or 5 backups they all stop working at the same time).

We'll see how SSDs end up price wise. If the calculations of what people have guessed here are correct, then about 6 years of usage for 2TB sounds decent at current prices. I doubt prices are lower than they are now within 6 years, so I may get a couple. But 4TB prices are absurd for some brands, like the Samsung ones, it's really nonsense. Not sure about Crucial ones if they drop firmware support. Im not familiar with the rest of the brands. Kingston I tend to use for RAM but never bought drives so not sure if they are reliable. I've got an old SanDisk that stil works but it's a smaller SSD. And let's hope that the calculations stay correct because if you calculate 6-7 years of SSD usage for the blockchain on a lean setup (only Linux + Bitcoin) it is being made on the current situation and extrapolating linearly. Back then people did these calculations on 1MB and then they came up with Segwit and so on.