Armory, Bitcoin Core take a long long time to install: 48 hours + (BTC = null;)

[TonyT]

Just stating the obvious concerning the installation of Armory and  Bitcoin Core. On a Windows 8 PC, i5 quadcore, 32bit OS with 4 GB RAM, a fairly new HD (that is thrashing so bad now I cannot even use spell-check on this message, so I'll use simple words), and a 1.5 MBps DSL Modem, it's going on 48 hours and it's on step #3 of 4, "Building Databases", the other steps being downloading the blockchain, synchronizing with network, and the final step being scan transaction history.  I estimate another 12+ hours to go.

I do code on occasion, I once even built a internet relay chat.  I figured that the peer-to-peer aspect of Bitcoin Core/ Armory was the hardest part of Bitcoin (the mining algorithm, once you figure it out, is trivial by comparison).  So I figured that the value add of Bitcoin programmers was the peer-to-peer network feature, which is I think true.  But this is also the weakest link at present, due to the huge blockchain I think (if you are a Bitcoin developer you know even more than me).  After the user is wowed by the pretty front end (I like the Marijuana crypto-coin logo myself), the ugly reality for the retail consumer is that the back end, where the work is done, is broken unless you go to a light weight client for your wallet.  And if you do that, you lose control.  Why not just use PayPal if that's the route Bitcoin developers want users to go?  Mastercard, Visa, Paypal will process a small transaction 'for free', and the vendor worries about it, not unlike the Bitcoin transaction fee.

In short, even though I'm a noob Bitcoin believer, I see clearly that the Bitcoin model is broken.  The regulators once again are behind the curve here:  contrary to their belief, Bitcoin is not a threat to traditional banking, rather, it's on its last legs, as presently configured.

TonyT

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[Kluge]

(I like the Marijuana crypto-coin logo myself)

I think we're using a different version of Bitcoin.

Core doesn't spend nearly as long post-download as Armory does, but Armory does add some great features. Internet connection matters a lot, and it's increasingly difficult to download the blockchain in any reasonable span of time. I get ~200kb/s on the best of days using a mobile data connection, ~10-100kb/s most days. I'd have to wait for a friend to ship me a copy via mail to re-sync if I ever lost my copies (and I do care enough to keep multiple copies). I completely understand where you're coming from. It is possible to significantly compress the bootstrap files. In the case of a 48h download, you should be able to cut download time by ~16-20h while requiring ~2-4h decompressing on a decent setup - a nice gain for those of us without cable or fiber. Jeff Garzik hosts the trusted source of it right now and's open to the suggestion, AFAIK.

[TonyT]

(I like the Marijuana crypto-coin logo myself)

I think we're using a different version of Bitcoin.

Core doesn't spend nearly as long post-download as Armory does, but Armory does add some great features. Internet connection matters a lot, and it's increasingly difficult to download the blockchain in any reasonable span of time. I get ~200kb/s on the best of days using a mobile data connection, ~10-100kb/s most days. I'd have to wait for a friend to ship me a copy via mail to re-sync if I ever lost my copies (and I do care enough to keep multiple copies). I completely understand where you're coming from. It is possible to significantly compress the bootstrap files. In the case of a 48h download, you should be able to cut download time by ~16-20h while requiring ~2-4h decompressing on a decent setup - a nice gain for those of us without cable or fiber. Jeff Garzik hosts the trusted source of it right now and's open to the suggestion, AFAIK.

Thank you sir I appreciate the reply.  The pot reference was to an alt-cryptocoin logo I saw on this forum, very cool looking.  I am using the latest Armory version for bitcoin, which wraps the Core Bitcoin version 0.9.3 in it.  According to Task Manager my hard drive is completely at 100% active now for several hours, though the RAM memory is only 70% full (I hope this program does not have a memory leak that will slowly consume all my RAM, it does not appear to), and the Ethernet land line receives at spurts of 0, 8, 24, 40, 8, 0 etc Kbps. I am posting from a developing country in southeast Asia:  think Indonesia not Thailand, where internet is spotty. 

I don't care about my experience, since I am a bit of a geek (not a professional programmer however), but my concern is for Joe and Jane Average in the USA, where internet is actually worse than Korea and Japan (though not as bad as here in southeast Asia).  My hypothesis is that they will not put up with Armory, which is a shame, and will instead move to a thin, lightweight wallet that resides online.  Then I posit that this is no better than using Paypal etc due to the even less anonymity you have with an online, lightweight wallet.  That's my rant / thesis.

TonyT

[TonyT]

44 hours later, the Armory wallet with Bitcoin Core, 32-bit version, installed.

TonyT

[gmaxwell]

Most of the time taken for hosts when its slow to sync is orphan handing or waiting for slow peers.  This is currently being fixed.

http://sourceforge.net/p/bitcoin/mailman/message/32921390/

[TonyT]

People still use hard drives? Ouch.

Sometimes freedom has a price. Yes, average folks aren't concerned with freedom and won't pay that price. Their loss.

Now that you mention it, everytime Armory boots up, the mechanical HD goes to 100% activity for several minutes, indeed, close to 10 minutes and counting while it syncs up with the network.  Should I get an SSD?  Armory is great but it's like a virus in terms of impacting my system.

[Kluge]

I'd guess the issue comes from having Bitcoin/Armory db on same drive as frequently-called stuff, esp. OS files. I keep the dbs on my storage drives (HDDs) while OS is on SSD without experiencing the same behavior, so maybe Core/Armory should suggest users set the db to a less used drive so their system doesn't hang each time they boot up or do something complex with the client. I'm assuming Armory utilizes multiple cores while setting up the db -- an issue might also pop up if Armory doesn't at least leave CPU 0 free (so if it detects multiple cores, maybe it should only use every core EXCEPT 0 by default). -But maybe they already do that - I don't know.

The other issue I have is with Core being unresponsive upon booting for ~5 minutes, which seems ridiculous. The way it hangs, it looks more like it crashed than's doing something. I imagine more than a handful of people've thought their system was incompatible and used a different client just because of the way Core hangs while it's loading.

[Newar]

The guys at Armory are aware of the issues and a fix is in the works.

I gather you're on Windows 8. Can you still lower process priority in that one like it used to be possible, via the task manager? It won't speed up the process of course, but should give you better response on other tasks running on the system.

[TonyT]

The guys at Armory are aware of the issues and a fix is in the works.

I gather you're on Windows 8. Can you still lower process priority in that one like it used to be possible, via the task manager? It won't speed up the process of course, but should give you better response on other tasks running on the system.

It's fine today.  It was only un-fine during the installation.  I never use Task Manager to set priority or do anything but monitor and occasionally kill a process--I don't trust it to work properly. 

Offtopic:  Armory is OK for me, as I say, but for non-power user I'm not so sure.  I will donate some BTC to the developers soon... I hear they or whoever backs them also have found a deep-pockets sponsor to take Armory to the next level, which I'm afraid is going to be a thin-wallet client for mobile phones.  A step backwards by the bitcoin community:  they should be figuring out a way of making bitcoin transactions even more anonymous (such as requiring mandatory washing of all bitcoins after every transaction, which would of course require one or more central nodes).  To make bitcoin more user friendly, by making thin wallets, where bitcoin user details are kept on a third party server, the bitcoin community is selling out to The Man by going down the path of non-anonymity.

[Kluge]

The guys at Armory are aware of the issues and a fix is in the works.

I gather you're on Windows 8. Can you still lower process priority in that one like it used to be possible, via the task manager? It won't speed up the process of course, but should give you better response on other tasks running on the system.

It's fine today.  It was only un-fine during the installation.  I never use Task Manager to set priority or do anything but monitor and occasionally kill a process--I don't trust it to work properly. 

Offtopic:  Armory is OK for me, as I say, but for non-power user I'm not so sure.  I will donate some BTC to the developers soon... I hear they or whoever backs them also have found a deep-pockets sponsor to take Armory to the next level, which I'm afraid is going to be a thin-wallet client for mobile phones.  A step backwards by the bitcoin community:  they should be figuring out a way of making bitcoin transactions even more anonymous (such as requiring mandatory washing of all bitcoins after every transaction, which would of course require one or more central nodes).  To make bitcoin more user friendly, by making thin wallets, where bitcoin user details are kept on a third party server, the bitcoin community is selling out to The Man by going down the path of non-anonymity.

Trace Mayer (who created "How to Vanish" and's pretty keen on anonymity and security improvements) dumped around $600k into Armory a year ago to boost the dev team and have Alan (lead) on it full-time, and along with other goals like multi-sig, creating a non-Core-dependent daemon, and HW wallet compatibility, Android clients were a suggested long-term goal. AFAIK, though, it wouldn't be meant to be a "real" bitcoin client by itself, but meant to work alongside offline wallets and allow for easier and quicker use of offline setups.

[TonyT]

This thread made me curious and I am currently seeing how long it takes to install (and sync) Armory (and Core) from scratch on a 5 year old laptop (although I've swapped out the HDD with an SSD).

Please post your experiences here, I am keen to know if the HD is the bottleneck; if so, I might switch to SSD.

Also where I'm at in southeast Asia the internet is usually 1.5 MBps, which is decent, but during installation it seemed the data for Armory was coming in in smaller than usual trickles (see this thread), but Kluge implied in his message this was not too off the mark (see his message).

I think maybe the HD is the bottleneck in my system...

Also I'm glad from Kluge's message to see Armory has the angel Trace Mayer pumping money and ideas into it, to make it more anonymous and robust.

[goatpig]

HDD I/O speed won't be the bottleneck anymore in the upcoming version.

[TonyT]

This is on an older laptop (at least 5 years) with a Core 2 Duo at 1.8Ghz and 3GB of RAM. As I said, the HDD has been replaced with a $60 SSD.

Also, it was a fresh install of Ubuntu. The SSD is half full allowing for some breathing room in block chain growth before requiring an SSD upgrade.

Thanks Holliday. This is way off topic, so no need to reply, and I've built a few PCs from scratch, and recently added as a D: drive a HDD that was SATA, but what is a good way to switch your C: drive from HDD to SSD? and what is the protocol? and what is a good model (or are they pretty much the same, and use 'trim' I think they call it for efficient writing of data) for Windows 8 install? (as a Linux man you should be able to give me advice even for Windows, since you Linux guys are supposed to be so advanced, lol)

I think:

1) Backup everything to external USB drive using say Acronis or similar doing an 'image' .  Also since I use my D: drive solely for backups, I will also backup the C: drive to the D: drive
2) Use a special program to transfer from HD to HD?  No but if you think so I might.  I think step #1 solves this anyway
3) Install the SSD as your new "C" drive, clean bare metal.  Play around with BIOS to make sure it's recognized. I have a modern BIOS which does auto-recognition but you must enable AHCI switch for SATA drives
4) install Windows 8 from your DVD onto the new SSD drive (I have a copy of my DVD so this is OK, it's not a factory install where they don't give you a DVD)
5) once up, install your Acronis or similar program and then, from the external DVD, or, in my case from my "D" drive, reinstall everything back to the new C: SSD drive
6).  So not to waste a HD, and I don't think this is a performance bottleneck, once everything is running stable you can create a new "E" drive that has the (must first format) old C: HDD.  As I say I don't think this is a bottleneck, and actually I read somewhere that you are supposed to put the OS on the SSD as "C" drive but data goes on "D" or "E" drive(s).  I wish I could also put the blockchain on D: or E:, but though I saw some suggestions on how to do this, I'm afraid to do it.

Thanks.

[TonyT]

Plus I feel I'm doing some small part in the P2P network.

Ah, this relates to a question I was meaning to ask so I might as well ask you if you have a moment:  if I keep Armory on my PC, and have Armory turned on, and my PC is connected to the internet, am I part of the "P2P network"?  Is that what you mean?  And I am facilitating somehow the efficient workings of bitcoin?  That makes me feel proud...lol.  I think, technically, Skype the p-to-p network works the same way:  if you keep your PC on, and run Skype on it, somehow it helps with transmissions of messages to third parties, unrelated to you.  Don't quote me on that, but I recall some suggestion to this effect once.

[goatpig]

This is on an older laptop (at least 5 years) with a Core 2 Duo at 1.8Ghz and 3GB of RAM. As I said, the HDD has been replaced with a $60 SSD.

Also, it was a fresh install of Ubuntu. The SSD is half full allowing for some breathing room in block chain growth before requiring an SSD upgrade.

what is a good way to switch your C: drive from HDD to SSD?

1) Start under Windows and move the swap partition out of the install drive.
2) If your system partition is bigger than your SSD, use Gparted to shrink it. Very straight forward and simple to use.
3) Plug in the SSD in your machine.
4) Get Clonezilla's iso and start it from a usb key. Do a partition to partition copy with default settings.
5) If it complains about GPT/MBR mismatch, follow the instructions it gives you (using gdisk) and pick GPT (delete the MBR, Win8 is a GPT OS
6) Make sure your mobo boots from the SSD.
7) Set the swap on the HDD (preferably, swap erodes SSDs unnecessarily)

[TonyT]

what is a good way to switch your C: drive from HDD to SSD?
 

1) Start under Windows and move the swap partition out of the install drive.
2) If your system partition is bigger than your SSD, use Gparted to shrink it. Very straight forward and simple to use.
3) Plug in the SSD in your machine.
4) Get Clonezilla's iso and start it from a usb key. Do a partition to partition copy with default settings.
5) If it complains about GPT/MBR mismatch, follow the instructions it gives you (using gdisk) and pick GPT (delete the MBR, Win8 is a GPT OS
6) Make sure your mobo boots from the SSD.
7) Set the swap on the HDD (preferably, swap erodes SSDs unnecessarily)

This seems to be a very advanced way of doing this, maybe this is a (kind of) hot swap.  I need to answer these questions, as this seems too complicated for me, but... (though maybe I can try it just after I backup everything, since I have nothing to lose, worse case if it fails I can always do things my old-fashioned, slow way)

1) why move swap partition out of C:, and into the new SSD? And how do you do this?  With a simple XCOPY or you need to play around with Registry settings? [update: see step 7) below]

2) My system partition is not bigger, so irrelevant, thanks

3) I can get Clonezilla, and will do this and the next steps no problem

6) OK, I will play around with the mobo BIOS

7) aha!  I see now why you want to do step #1.  So the question is:  let's say I ignore step #1 upon installation.  After my system is on the new SSD as the new "C:" drive, can I then swap partition from the new SSD to the old HD on D:?  If so, I rather do this after the installation rather than before.

[goatpig]

1) Windows sets a swap partition by default which is equal in size to your RAM. If you have, say, 32GB of RAM and a 20GB Windows install, you are copying 32GB worth of useless swap data. On Linux, swap has a dedicate partition so this doesn't apply. In Windows however, it's just a hidden file, on your system disk by default. You can turn off swap or move the file around through the Control Panel. The minute details are off topic, just google it, it's a fairly simple procedure. Once you have reassigned your swapping file, reboot and you're done.

7) Again, swap isnt a partition on Windows, just a file, and you can assign one per drive letter (i.e. one per mounted partition). You could do the entire process without moving the swap file, and you'd end up with a copy of your system as is, on a different physical unit. Since you intent to move to a SSD, you should get rid of swapping on that drive if you have the RAM to afford it. That or move your swap to the HDD.

[TonyT]

 You could do the entire process without moving the swap file, and you'd end up with a copy of your system as is, on a different physical unit. Since you intent to move to a SSD, you should get rid of swapping on that drive if you have the RAM to afford it. That or move your swap to the HDD.

I prefer to move the swap file after I do the clone from HD to SSD.  Also, this article from the superuser site says even if you have no HD, and only an SSD (which I do not, as I will have both), it's OK to leave the swap file in place in the SSD (see the accepted answer):  http://superuser.com/questions/51724/should-i-keep-my-swap-file-on-an-ssd-drive 

Thanks for your help!

[schmidt50]

http://www.blockchain-library.com

[mariostevenson]

Hello,

RE: Re: Armory, Bitcoin Core take a long long time to install: 48 hours + (BTC = null;)

Just thinking (as an AWS admin,) if the BCDB can be downloaded and only needs to sync therefrom, then certainly images of the BCDB can distributed via offline for delivery (and yes I did check out that library via the link.) Of course it would take a 50GB - 60GB flash drive; it's something to offer rather than downloads. My real concern on the issue was that, so much for security, it doesn't make sense anyway to download the BC to a PC no more than using an online service (w/o having a root key.)

Honestly, I'd rather have a server-to-server daemon on an AWS EC2 instance that regularly gets the BCDB and then configure the Amory software to connect to the instance (like anything else.) Perhaps, it's something I might look into doing, -- really considering it, but this other stuff -- hurry up and wait -- just defeats technology.

Thanks