Topic: Cheap Node Self Hosting: Just because you CAN does not mean you SHOULD - page 3. (Read 807 times)

Raspberry Pi4 is much better option because they have much bigger option to choose more RAM, that is if yo can find them available in stock 

Unless you are running pruned node, that can run on even smaller hard disk without any issues.
I don't think larger hard drives are problem for anyone nowadays, old style HDD are very cheap now and you can find them anywhere.

If you look at ebay or craiglist you can find very cheap good laptops with more than enough RAM, processor and hard disk.
I would say that for around $100 you can get great used laptop with 3rd or 4th generation i5 or i7 intel with SSD and 8gb RAM, but better look models that can be upgraded in future, with socketed parts, not soldered.

I don't think they are so much expensive anymore, you can quickly find very good new 1TB for around $80 to $90, and even cheaper on some deals.
There are a bunch of used 100% health 2.5 inch SSD drives being sold online, so you can find good Samsung 860 evo for around $60 to $70.
However, you should always look for TBW and higher number means that disk will last much longer, for 860 evo that would be 600TB.

I believe the bitcoin.org website lists the minimum required PC specs for running Bitcoin core (with the exception of CPU), but I don't think it lists recommended specs. I'll fill these in from my own experience:

CPU: at least 2.5GHz (block verification is single-threaded. Additional cores won't speed this up.)
Memory: 4GB RAM (healthy buffer for dbcache)
Disk: 1TB HDD (7200RPM separate from OS - but only because 1TB SSDs are still fairly expensive.)
Network: 50Mbit/s (anything less than that and block & tx download/upload will affect your connection quality)

Since the same things keep coming up:

1) Yes you can force a RPi2 or 3 to run a node but it is going to be a slow miserable time and you will have lots of issues.

2) Yes you can download the entire blockchain and run a node on a 500GB drive. But you WILL run out of space and then probably have corruption and then have to buy a larger drive and start again. And you might not even be able to copy the data from the old drive if the corruption was bad enough.

3) Yes you can use older equipment to do it. You can even use 10 year old laptops with a 2nd gen core i5. But much older then that the pure performance issues are going to be a killer. And as time goes on it's only going to get worse.

4) You can even use an old 5400 RPM drive and store your OS and blockchain on it. But if for whatever reason you have to do a full re-scan of the blockchain I hope you have a couple of days to kill.

5) Yes you can do it with 2GB of RAM, but your IBD is going to take 2 days short of forever and general performance is going to be miserable.

n0nce made a nice post about doing a node for under $60. https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/guide-how-to-run-a-bitcoin-core-full-node-for-under-50-bucks-5364742
You can do it for a bit more, you can do it for a bit less.

Don't try to cut that price in 1/2 unless you are technically inclined and can work around the issues. Otherwise you are going to have a miserable time.

This is not to stop people from trying, far from it. This is a post letting you know that it WILL WORK. But the time and effort you are going to put into it, although probably a learning experience is going to be a lot more then having SLIGHTLY better equipment and doing it more efficiently.

-Dave