bitcoind very slow to respond

[JohnnyCashout]

I was running bitcoind 0.3.x and 0.4.x on a freebsd virtual server and it ran pretty well.  It was compiled from source from the freebsd ports tree.   I now am trying to use bitcoind 64bit binary downloaded from bitcoin.org on a CentOS 6 virtual server, and it seems to use a lot more memory and cpu than the older version I was using.  Also, "bitcoind getinfo"  will lag over 30 seconds sometimes before responding. When it finally responds, subsequent getinfo calls return quickly, but if you wait a while it hangs again.

Also my app which communicates to bitcoind via rpc to make new payment addresses and such will also have very slow response at times, and if the delay goes over 30 seconds my load balancer gives up and it screws up the transaction (unfortunately I can't increase the timeout on the load balancer)

should I try getting the latest bitcoind compiled from source to see if the performance is better than the provided binary?  Is there some other trick I'm missing regarding why this is happening?

[1715049762]

1715049762

[piuk]

Is is catching up with the blockchain?

You could try http://blockchain.info/json_rpc_api if your unable to resolve the issue.

[JohnnyCashout]

I am now seeing faster response times from bitcoind.  It might have been a temporary problem. It still uses significantly more RAM and cpu than the old versions.  And I've never liked how much disk I/O bitcoin uses.  I'm wondering if I should setup bitcoind to run on a ramfs of some sort for better performance/reduced disk I/O (and be sure to mirror it frequently to disk in case of power loss)

also looking into the JSON RPC API, thanks

[gmaxwell]

I am now seeing faster response times from bitcoind.  It might have been a temporary problem. It still uses significantly more RAM and cpu than the old versions.  And I've never liked how much disk I/O bitcoin uses.  I'm wondering if I should setup bitcoind to run on a ramfs of some sort for better performance/reduced disk I/O (and be sure to mirror it frequently to disk in case of power loss)

also looking into the JSON RPC API, thanks

As was mentioned it was unresponsive during the initial syncup— it was busily syncing blocks so quickly that the rest of Bitcoin was being starved. This will probably improve in later versions.

Bitcoin uses more resources now because the chain is much bigger— but current versions are actually much faster when compared apples to apples.  Bitcoin is very fast on tmpfs.