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