Running a full node is starting to be a pain

[Vortex20000]

Well, I have a computer with 16GBs of RAM and upload/download speed of 300mbps.

I'm running Bitcoin-qt, Namecoin-qt, Feathercoin-qt, Dogecoin-qt, and Digibyte-qt, all of which are full nodes.

I don't get lag.

How big is the Blockchain at the moment?

For bitcoin? Something over 20GBs. I have 4TBs, so I never check.

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[Muhammed Zakir]

Well, I have a computer with 16GBs of RAM and upload/download speed of 300mbps.

I'm running Bitcoin-qt, Namecoin-qt, Feathercoin-qt, Dogecoin-qt, and Digibyte-qt, all of which are full nodes.

I don't get lag.

How big is the Blockchain at the moment?

For bitcoin? Something over 20GBs. I have 4TBs, so I never check.

Yes, 20+ GB. Devs are trying to reduce the size to around 20 GB or below. It will be better, IMO.
Kindly,
       MZ

[e4xit]

5GB is a weird memory amount.  I assume it is 1GB DIMM and 4GB DIMM.  I would either add a 4GB DIMM (8GB total) or remove both and add a pair of 8GB DIMMS (16GB total).  Save the rest of your funds towards an SSD. 

To follow this, how are you going to make 20GB? Historically (not sure if it's the case so much now) memory liked running in equal pairs (or quads), for example 2x2GB for 4 GB total, 2x8GB for 16GB or 4x8GB for 32GB. If you are planning on trying 2x8GB + 1x4GB then I'm not sure this is optimal for the system, although sure someone will chip I'm to correct me if this is no longer true these days....

I would try and get a cheap 16GB kit (2x8GB), use just that and then definitely acquire an SSD which will give you the biggest performance boost.

[halfawake]

To follow this, how are you going to make 20GB?

Well, it definitely wouldn't be a matched pair to get to 20 GB.  Basically, I have two RAM chips now, a 4 GB one and a 1 GB chip, making 5 GB.  I'd replace the 1 GB chip with a 16 GB chip, making it a total of 20 GB of RAM. 

To follow up on  Abdussamad's recommendation, I ran chkdsk /r.  It didn't seem to report any errors.  So at this point my guess is that it's either a not enough RAM issue, not a fast enough hard drive issue, or a not enough upload bandwidth issue.  The first two of those are fixable, the last, well...all I could do to fix that would be to ratelimit bitcoin-qt.   

[Vortex20000]

Well, I have a computer with 16GBs of RAM and upload/download speed of 300mbps.

I'm running Bitcoin-qt, Namecoin-qt, Feathercoin-qt, Dogecoin-qt, and Digibyte-qt, all of which are full nodes.

I don't get lag.

How big is the Blockchain at the moment?

For bitcoin? Something over 20GBs. I have 4TBs, so I never check.

Yes, 20+ GB. Devs are trying to reduce the size to around 20 GB or below. It will be better, IMO.
Kindly,
       MZ

I actually don't mind the 20GBs. The only problem I have is that the blockchain takes up a huge amount of space (relatively) on my Macbook Air (2012). I solved that problem by deleting apps. I actually discovered I had an application (iMovie) taking up 42 freaking gigabytes of space.

[Dabs]

I don't know what's wrong with your computer. Mine runs fine with bitcoin, litecoin, tagcoin, guncoin, and a bunch of other coins. Specs are 2 GB Ram DDR2 666 (slow compared to today's standard 1333/1666), and an old intel dual core T4400.

Of course, I'm still on Win XP 32 bit, but right now, most of my coins have 30+ connections each.

I can do office applications just fine, but drawing and paint stuff do take a noticeable hit. (They've always had that problem though, even without bitcoin.)

4 year old laptop.

Try doing the same software configuration with the same specs... Something is wrong with your computer.

[almightyruler]

Downloading the blockchain is easy. A much bigger resource hog is verifying the blockchain.

+1

I recently had to sync a new wallet from scratch, so I used a forced connection to a single up-to-date node on the same LAN. At first it was flying - several tens of megs transferred per second - but gradually the sync got slower and slower (more transactions per block?). Towards the end it was spending a second or two to verify each block.

[TimS]

Well, it definitely wouldn't be a matched pair to get to 20 GB.  Basically, I have two RAM chips now, a 4 GB one and a 1 GB chip, making 5 GB.  I'd replace the 1 GB chip with a 16 GB chip, making it a total of 20 GB of RAM. 

You should run your memory dual-channel. Basically, if you get two of the same type of chips, they can run twice as fast. (consult your motherboard manual for details on if it supports it, where to put the chips, etc.)
E.g. I'd recommend that you get two 8GB chips (16GB total) instead of 16+4GB as you describe.

[halfawake]

I don't know what's wrong with your computer. Mine runs fine with bitcoin, litecoin, tagcoin, guncoin, and a bunch of other coins. Specs are 2 GB Ram DDR2 666 (slow compared to today's standard 1333/1666), and an old intel dual core T4400.

Of course, I'm still on Win XP 32 bit, but right now, most of my coins have 30+ connections each.

I can do office applications just fine, but drawing and paint stuff do take a noticeable hit. (They've always had that problem though, even without bitcoin.)

4 year old laptop.

Try doing the same software configuration with the same specs... Something is wrong with your computer.

Yeah...I've been mulling over what Dabs said for a while here and I think he's right.  I just looked up the warning signs of a hard drive failure and my computer seems to be showing three out of the eight signs listed.  Think it's time to buy a new hard drive.

[zvs]

Someone downloading the blockchain shouldn't make your computer unresponsive.  If you don't have enough upstream bandwidth, it could make your internet really slow.

If you really want to run one, just use something like this:

https://vpsdime.com/cart.php?a=add&pid=41

6GB RAM
30GB SSD space
4 vCPU cores
2TB traffic
10Gbps uplink
1x IPv4
OpenVZ/Custom
$7/month

... wouldn't do the annual billing tho, since 30GB won't be enough for a year.

[-ck]

How big is the Blockchain at the moment?

I downloaded the whole thing a couple of days ago from scratch. It's currently 27GB.

[tl121]

You should go to the help menu of Bitcoin Core and pull down the Debug menu.  With this you can look at a graph of Internet traffic. This will show what is going on with network traffic.  You can also use the Windows task manager to monitor computer system resources being eaten up. With my X64 Windows 7 system running with 12 GB of RAM, my problem wasn't the computer system, it was my network bandwidth, specifically upload bandwidth thanks to a DSL connection with pathetic (1 Mbps) upload speed.  I didn't have problems with system performance when running a full node, but I did get my DSL uplink bandwidth completely saturated, making web surfing impossible from any computer on my LAN.

The problem is with the Bitcoin software.  It should come with easily configured user limits on upload and download network bandwidth.  This has been a capability of peer to peer file sharing systems, such as bittorrent clients, for many years.  However, on the Windows 7 platform there is a way around this limitation that should work just fine, albeit with a slight amount of inconvenience.

 My cure was to configure a Group Policy using the Windows Group Policy editor.  I limited the upload bandwidth of bitcoin to about half my available uplink bandwidth.  Problem solved. In the group policy editor under Windows Settings, Policy-based QoS I set two policies for TCP port 8333, bitcoin incoming and bitcoing outgoing. Since doing this, bitcoin no longer steals my computer or network bandwidth.

[arorts]

Is there a way to install the bitcoind package in Ubuntu to be able to run commands but without having to download the blockchain?

For example, I'd like to use getblock, getrawtransaction, etc but not having to get the entire blockchain....

[almightyruler]

Is there a way to install the bitcoind package in Ubuntu to be able to run commands but without having to download the blockchain?

For example, I'd like to use getblock, getrawtransaction, etc but not having to get the entire blockchain....

Don't think that would be possible, since RPC commands refer to a local database... which is the blockchain.

If it's time rather than HD space you're trying to save, you can use the existing client to seed the new one:

./bitcoind -connect=x.x.x.x -listen=0

(where x.x.x.x is the IP of your existing client)

Be aware that it can take a bit of time to verify every block, as I mentioned earlier in this thread.

You can also try copying the block database - it should be binary compatible across platforms. Basically, copy the contents of directories blocks/ and chainstate/ from your existing data dir, to the data dir on your linux box, then start bitcoind.

Another option, if you really don't want the duplicate blockchain, may be to use the API of a block explorer?

[Mabsark]

Unless there's some serious reason that 20 GB of RAM is essential, then it's way overkill for a home user. Whatever gave you the impression that you'd need so much RAM?

Are you still having problems or was it just the one time?

[Jaymax]

I always wondered why OS designers wouldn't implement a system warning message whenever the system needs to use the swap file to such an extent that the user experience becomes heavily degraded. Most users don't understand what's happening in the background, and what they can do about it (i.e. add more RAM)

I remember a time, not all that long ago, when the HDD light performed exactly the function very well...

[iShade]

Is there a way to install the bitcoind package in Ubuntu to be able to run commands but without having to download the blockchain?

For example, I'd like to use getblock, getrawtransaction, etc but not having to get the entire blockchain....

Not that im aware of, there are multiple websites that have all that information available freely without having to download anything.

[gmaxwell]

Not that im aware of, there are multiple websites that have all that information available freely without having to download anything.

You could also just switch to paypal and avoid all the complexity of that fussy Bitcoin stuff. Since you're apparently happy to trust oft-anonymous oft-judgement proof parties, paypal would likely be a big security upgrade too.

[thefunkybits]

Man I'd love to see a new specialized computer product which sole purpose is to run a BTC node.

Trezor has hardware for wallets, mining companies have hardware to mine, there are hardware units to make paper wallets...

why not a piece of hardware designed specifically to run a full node?

[elebit]

6GB RAM
30GB SSD space

The 30GB is not going to last long, but the 6GB is overkill. It runs strained on 1GB, but with 2 it never swaps, so you don't need 6.