But yes, there are some external solutions that will provide the necessary bandwidth to make it a non-issue... Although, the cost of these purchases would probably be better spent on simply buying a new PC
Topic: Can Bitcoin core/Armory be run on an external drive? (Read 179 times)
I don't imagine an old computer with 3GB of RAM and a 1Gig harddrive is going to have much in the way of spare PCIe or USB-C tho
But yes, there are some external solutions that will provide the necessary bandwidth to make it a non-issue... Although, the cost of these purchases would probably be better spent on simply buying a new PC
But yes, there are some external solutions that will provide the necessary bandwidth to make it a non-issue... Although, the cost of these purchases would probably be better spent on simply buying a new PC
This is more of a question about your OS and hardware other than armory in specific. A full node needs to write the blockchain to a drive that your computer recognizes.
So long as your computer can recognize your drive you could do anything with it.
It doesn't matter if the drive is in or out of the box for that matter (external vs. internal). Just set the wallet to store the blockchain there and have have connected before starting your client.
So long as your computer can recognize your drive you could do anything with it.
It doesn't matter if the drive is in or out of the box for that matter (external vs. internal). Just set the wallet to store the blockchain there and have have connected before starting your client.
Not exactly. While Core only does plain read/write operations to the drive, Armory maps the files for access. This means it tells the OS to treat specific areas of the drive as part of the RAM. The OS then balances that stuff in and out of the RAM according to access patterns for significantly better performances. The caveat is that stuff like NFS won't work. Physically connected drives will however, through USB or internally.
Additionally, external drives are generally a lot slower than internal drives due to limitations of the interfaces used for this ie. USB... that may impact on your initial blockchain syncing time (which involves a lot of disk I/O)... but is probably not so much of an issue in day to day usage.
If it's a desktop computer, a 1TB hard drive is a lot cheaper than external drives with the same capacity.
Plus it will be faster since it's internally connected.
Plus it will be faster since it's internally connected.
That's not necessarely true. NVMe drives are fast because they connect directly through PCIe. USB 3 is slow not because of the transport capabilities but because it typically goes through the southbridge. I think some manufacturers connect some USB-C ports to PCIe directly but that really depends on your mobo. If you straight up buy a PCIe USB-C adapter card however, you can get blazing fast speeds with a USB-C to m.2 connector.
That's not particularly relevant for a HDD, which is limited to ~100MB/s sequential I/O cause of the physical constraints, but you can get near native speeds with an NVMe drive plugged through USB-C that way. USB-C can carry 4K@60fps video for what its worth.
Thanks for the suggestions. I like the 1 terabyte idea.
This old computer I am running bitcoin core and Armory on is a 2.53 ghz with 3.0 GB of ram. hard drive on that computer is roughly 950 megabytes.
If it's a desktop computer, a 1TB hard drive is a lot cheaper than external drives with the same capacity.Plus it will be faster since it's internally connected.
Quote from: truebits
Suggestions?
Why don't you switch the machines?The capable one as the online computer and that older one as the offline computer.
Because you don't need to sync the offline Armory, it only needs the keys for signing purposes.
Note that running Bitcoin Core with it storing it's data on external drives has the added risk of an accidental drive disconnection resulting in data corruption in the block files, wallet.dat or both.
Additionally, external drives are generally a lot slower than internal drives due to limitations of the interfaces used for this ie. USB... that may impact on your initial blockchain syncing time (which involves a lot of disk I/O)... but is probably not so much of an issue in day to day usage.
Additionally, external drives are generally a lot slower than internal drives due to limitations of the interfaces used for this ie. USB... that may impact on your initial blockchain syncing time (which involves a lot of disk I/O)... but is probably not so much of an issue in day to day usage.
This is more of a question about your OS and hardware other than armory in specific. A full node needs to write the blockchain to a drive that your computer recognizes.
So long as your computer can recognize your drive you could do anything with it.
It doesn't matter if the drive is in or out of the box for that matter (external vs. internal). Just set the wallet to store the blockchain there and have have connected before starting your client.
So long as your computer can recognize your drive you could do anything with it.
It doesn't matter if the drive is in or out of the box for that matter (external vs. internal). Just set the wallet to store the blockchain there and have have connected before starting your client.
Hi everybody:
I am running a older computer which now seems to get very bogged down trying to run the current Armory (0.96.5)and Bitcoin core(20.0).
This is the only purpose for this older computer (note this is the online computer, not the offline computer)
Question can I buy a very large 4 or 5 terabyte external hard drive and run Bitcoin core on it and then keep all that data off the older computer so at least it can function when a command is given?
I have zero interest in running a partial node.
Suggestions?
This old computer I am running bitcoin core and Armory on is a 2.53 ghz with 3.0 GB of ram. hard drive on that computer is roughly 950 megabytes.
I am running a older computer which now seems to get very bogged down trying to run the current Armory (0.96.5)and Bitcoin core(20.0).
This is the only purpose for this older computer (note this is the online computer, not the offline computer)
Question can I buy a very large 4 or 5 terabyte external hard drive and run Bitcoin core on it and then keep all that data off the older computer so at least it can function when a command is given?
I have zero interest in running a partial node.
Suggestions?
This old computer I am running bitcoin core and Armory on is a 2.53 ghz with 3.0 GB of ram. hard drive on that computer is roughly 950 megabytes.
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