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Topic: Cheapest way to run a full node ? (Read 2255 times)

copper member
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1528
No I dont escrow anymore.
January 03, 2015, 05:41:25 AM
#23

That looks really nice. Is there a step-by-step guide how to set up a full node available somewhere?

There is some sort of script flying around for Ubuntu Server but it did not work for me so I did it by hand. Its just an install of bitcoin core and for ubuntu there is a repo, so its not much. You will have no info page though.

-snip-

What program did you use to get those stats?

rrdtool [2] and shellscripts (cronjobs)

details about that can be found here [1]. Its not a step by step, but it should get you started



[1] http://213.165.91.169/whatdo.txt
[2] http://oss.oetiker.ch/rrdtool/
legendary
Activity: 2461
Merit: 1058
Don't use bitcoin.de if you care about privacy!
January 03, 2015, 04:49:08 AM
#22
SSD would use less power and be more resistant to damage than old HDD. They are also much faster than HDD and is useful for syncing and relaying of blocks.

Well, on paper a ssd is way faster than hdd but a BananaPi with SATA 1 Interface and an 10 MBit upload connection won't use nearly the max. read/write performance of the ssd. But an ssd would be useful when supplying many different parts of the blockchain to many different nodes at the same time, right?
legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 4418
Crypto Swap Exchange
January 03, 2015, 03:05:05 AM
#21
How about an Banana Pi as full node? It costs nearly the same as RPI but has 1GB of Ram (which should be sufficient,right) and a SATA Port.
In March I will try to get a full node running on Banana Pi with 10Mbit upload. Will there be a significant benefit for using an old SSD for Blockchain storage instead of oldschool HDD? Maybe I/O performance?

Another cool Project: Bitcoin full node using Intel Edison!
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9064556


SSD would use less power and be more resistant to damage than old HDD. They are also much faster than HDD and is useful for syncing and relaying of blocks.
legendary
Activity: 1143
Merit: 1000
January 02, 2015, 05:26:19 PM
#20
http://blog.pryds.eu/2014/06/compile-bitcoin-core-on-raspberry-pi.html

instead of the sdcard, get one external hdd and use it full time /home/ and move all the partitions to external hdd, use just a 4 gb sd for the other partitions.

Get an usb hub or use latest raspberry pi b+ with the 4 usb hubs, should do well, im planning my self to set one up in later january Smiley
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 504
January 02, 2015, 01:13:50 PM
#19
Thanks for your answers. So I'm lead to the conclusion the cheapest option (without much tweaking)
would be to rent out a virtual server. They can be had for a couple of $'s and should
be sufficient ram-wise and traffic-wise (usually at least 50-100 GB/month is included in these
contracts). Did someone try that?

Mine [1] is a VServer (single core, 2 GB Ram, 50(?)GB SSD) and its fine as a node. Its a bit slow from time to time for the analysis of the mempool I want to run, but Im working on another baremetal server at home for that.


[1] http://213.165.91.169/

That looks really nice. Is there a step-by-step guide how to set up a full node available somewhere?
legendary
Activity: 2461
Merit: 1058
Don't use bitcoin.de if you care about privacy!
January 02, 2015, 01:05:52 PM
#18
How about an Banana Pi as full node? It costs nearly the same as RPI but has 1GB of Ram (which should be sufficient,right) and a SATA Port.
In March I will try to get a full node running on Banana Pi with 10Mbit upload. Will there be a significant benefit for using an old SSD for Blockchain storage instead of oldschool HDD? Maybe I/O performance?

Another cool Project: Bitcoin full node using Intel Edison!
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.9064556

legendary
Activity: 1862
Merit: 1011
Reverse engineer from time to time
January 02, 2015, 12:52:24 PM
#17
What is the cheapest way to run a full node. I do have a few external HDDs and rasp pi laying around.
No unused laptops though.

Suggestions ? ideas ?
You'll have difficulty running a full node on a pi. It doesn't have enough ram and will end up using swap.
With some configuration, it is possible to reduce the memory footprint to as low as 200 or lower megabytes.

Can you show me how to do this? I would prefer to use a Pi instead of an x86_64 motherboard setup.
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/m.8632982

However, setting -listen to 0 means you will not be relaying transactions to other nodes, and that is the most important part of being a full node. You will still be receiving transactions, just not relaying them to other peers.
legendary
Activity: 3038
Merit: 4418
Crypto Swap Exchange
January 02, 2015, 09:25:26 AM
#16
What is the cheapest way to run a full node. I do have a few external HDDs and rasp pi laying around.
No unused laptops though.

Suggestions ? ideas ?
You'll have difficulty running a full node on a pi. It doesn't have enough ram and will end up using swap.
You can use swap and also take steps to reduce memory usage but you would need to have a hard disk/SSD connected to the pi. AFAIK, SD cards aren't designed to have a heavy read and write cycles and can be relatively slow.
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1016
January 02, 2015, 08:41:54 AM
#15
Thanks for your answers. So I'm lead to the conclusion the cheapest option (without much tweaking)
would be to rent out a virtual server. They can be had for a couple of $'s and should
be sufficient ram-wise and traffic-wise (usually at least 50-100 GB/month is included in these
contracts). Did someone try that?

Mine [1] is a VServer (single core, 2 GB Ram, 50(?)GB SSD) and its fine as a node. Its a bit slow from time to time for the analysis of the mempool I want to run, but Im working on another baremetal server at home for that.


[1] http://213.165.91.169/

What program did you use to get those stats?
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1016
January 02, 2015, 08:38:18 AM
#14
What is the cheapest way to run a full node. I do have a few external HDDs and rasp pi laying around.
No unused laptops though.

Suggestions ? ideas ?
You'll have difficulty running a full node on a pi. It doesn't have enough ram and will end up using swap.
With some configuration, it is possible to reduce the memory footprint to as low as 200 or lower megabytes.

Can you show me how to do this? I would prefer to use a Pi instead of an x86_64 motherboard setup.
copper member
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1528
No I dont escrow anymore.
January 02, 2015, 06:40:54 AM
#13
Thanks for your answers. So I'm lead to the conclusion the cheapest option (without much tweaking)
would be to rent out a virtual server. They can be had for a couple of $'s and should
be sufficient ram-wise and traffic-wise (usually at least 50-100 GB/month is included in these
contracts). Did someone try that?

Mine [1] is a VServer (single core, 2 GB Ram, 50(?)GB SSD) and its fine as a node. Its a bit slow from time to time for the analysis of the mempool I want to run, but Im working on another baremetal server at home for that.


[1] http://213.165.91.169/
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 504
January 02, 2015, 05:31:43 AM
#12
Thanks for your answers. So I'm lead to the conclusion the cheapest option (without much tweaking)
would be to rent out a virtual server. They can be had for a couple of $'s and should
be sufficient ram-wise and traffic-wise (usually at least 50-100 GB/month is included in these
contracts). Did someone try that?
legendary
Activity: 1862
Merit: 1011
Reverse engineer from time to time
January 02, 2015, 05:10:39 AM
#11
What is the cheapest way to run a full node. I do have a few external HDDs and rasp pi laying around.
No unused laptops though.

Suggestions ? ideas ?
You'll have difficulty running a full node on a pi. It doesn't have enough ram and will end up using swap.
With some configuration, it is possible to reduce the memory footprint to as low as 200 or lower megabytes.
copper member
Activity: 1498
Merit: 1528
No I dont escrow anymore.
January 02, 2015, 04:07:03 AM
#10
-snip-
Would it be possible using a bananapi or cubietruck or something similar? Can you say something
about the "realistic" minimal requirements? I'd also interested in how much traffic this would cause
per month.

Traffic depends on the number of connections obviously. I limited them to 50 a while back.

the last days:



the bussiest days yet:

legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1016
January 01, 2015, 06:19:31 PM
#9
Can you say something
about the "realistic" minimal requirements? I'd also interested in how much traffic this would cause
per month.
My full node is currently using 660MB of ram, connected to 54 peers.

Not sure how much bandwidth I use each month. I have an unlimited home broadband package, so I don't worry about it.
sr. member
Activity: 278
Merit: 254
January 01, 2015, 06:02:15 PM
#8
Not the cheapest, but has been running well since it was installed 6 weeks ago.

$300:
Intel Atom E3815.1 1.46GHz Fanless NUC Barebone Kit
Crucial 8 GB Single DDR3 1600 Mt/s
Intel 520 SSD 120 GB
Ubuntu 14.04.1 LTS x86_64









hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 500
January 01, 2015, 02:30:23 PM
#7
What is the cheapest way to run a full node. I do have a few external HDDs and rasp pi laying around.
No unused laptops though.

Suggestions ? ideas ?
You'll have difficulty running a full node on a pi. It doesn't have enough ram and will end up using swap.
Would it be possible using a bananapi or cubietruck or something similar? Can you say something
about the "realistic" minimal requirements? I'd also interested in how much traffic this would cause
per month.

3-5gb upload per day i heard.
hero member
Activity: 560
Merit: 504
January 01, 2015, 02:26:25 PM
#6
What is the cheapest way to run a full node. I do have a few external HDDs and rasp pi laying around.
No unused laptops though.

Suggestions ? ideas ?
You'll have difficulty running a full node on a pi. It doesn't have enough ram and will end up using swap.
Would it be possible using a bananapi or cubietruck or something similar? Can you say something
about the "realistic" minimal requirements? I'd also interested in how much traffic this would cause
per month.
legendary
Activity: 1652
Merit: 1016
January 01, 2015, 02:22:34 PM
#5
What is the cheapest way to run a full node. I do have a few external HDDs and rasp pi laying around.
No unused laptops though.

Suggestions ? ideas ?
You'll have difficulty running a full node on a pi. It doesn't have enough ram and will end up using swap.
legendary
Activity: 966
Merit: 1000
January 01, 2015, 02:18:26 PM
#4
We can use the home computer and launch the bitcoin wallet when we turn on the computer. That is a kind of full node, although it is off some time.
I don't know what you're trying to say, but answer to op: if you want to rent/pay for it then price shouldn't be above 20$/year.
sr. member
Activity: 462
Merit: 250
January 01, 2015, 11:58:00 AM
#3
We can use the home computer and launch the bitcoin wallet when we turn on the computer. That is a kind of full node, although it is off some time.
sr. member
Activity: 270
Merit: 250
January 01, 2015, 09:11:06 AM
#2
You can normally run only one instance on your network. So fire up the node on the computer you already have running all the time, and forget about all the other equipment you have lying around.
hero member
Activity: 812
Merit: 500
December 31, 2014, 10:41:08 PM
#1
What is the cheapest way to run a full node. I do have a few external HDDs and rasp pi laying around.
No unused laptops though.

Suggestions ? ideas ?
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