Topic: Hardware/software recommendations for node/lightning/electrs/more - page 2. (Read 443 times)

Have you checked it's current resource consumption? I like gnome-system-monitor for a quick overview: if CPU and RAM aren't maxed out, it can probably handle more.

I have a RPi 4 with 8GB RAM running core, lnd, electrs, joinmarket yg, and btc-rpc-explorer. It runs a little warm and sometimes it is slow. I'm not sure it can handle much more than that, but I would love to hear from others who have tested its limits.

Use Debian yes. That is the perfect distro to use when you don't want any moving (and broken) parts.  You'd be interested in Debian testing in particular, so you aren't locked out of dependencies for running newer software. Or you can go with Slackware which is also good but has got less prebuilt packages.

Hardware, you'll definitely need at least 16G for running all that, so that definitely rules out the Pi. Definitely don't use an Umbrel either (unless it can meet the RAM and storage requirements), especially if you want to run a bunch of custom stuff.

No need to disconnect it, just set it up to turn off the screen when you close it. Mine is set up to suspend when closed, that's why I couldn't easily test it.

Pi 4 or Pi 4 Model B? Are you running a variety of things at once on it? Given I want to simplify everything on to one device, I'm looking at running all the bitcoin apps I mentioned as well as potentially streaming media to multiple devices simultaneously. Can your Raspberry Pi handle all that?

I'd be happy to use something like that rather than a SBC, but a quick search seems the power draw on such devices will be anywhere between 5-10x more than a SBC. As I say, I'm looking for something with as little power draw as possible (for potential off grid use) while still being able to handle everything I've listed above, so I'd probably only buy a more power hungry device like that if it was absolutely necessary.

Good thinking. I already run RAID on my main storage, and I have some spare drives I could use to RAID everything except the blockchain itself.

I wouldn't plan on ever doing this. I really just want something I can set up and forget about.

Yeah, it seems an Orange Pi 5 at idle will consume <2W. If I was to use a laptop, I'd probably just disconnect the screen and any other hardware I don't need to reduce the power draw, though.

My usual answer would be: "get a laptop with low power CPU" (and 16 GB RAM), but after checking the Orange Pi 5 specs, that's consumes even less power. I just checked my spare laptop: it uses 8W while "being on" with the screen on the lowest brightness. That includes it's SSD, and it would be a tad less less with the screen off. I like laptops because they're cheap and come with build-in UPS. For your purpose, it would either need a large SSD, or hook up a cheap USB HDD and move the large data there.

Unfortunately, I can't advice you on most of the software questions, as I only have experience with Bitcoin Core.

Yes, you can do everything like that on Umbrel on a RPi4. I am doing it now.

IMO, you are better off getting something like this. [Not that actual one but a micro PC along those lines]

https://www.amazon.com/Beelink-SEI10-i3-10110U-Computer-Performance/dp/B0BPBWTCQX?ref_=ast_sto_dp&th=1

Running Debain along with mirrored drives. IF you are running your own LN node you don't want to have to deal with the recovery and everything else if 1 of the drives dies.
Yes, I am running with no raid, BUT I know the risks and the cost of a 2nd drive is more then I have in my LN node so.....

Not to mention, as software gets more bloaty the faster machine will just keep up better.

AND it's got more power (not computing power just raw electrical power) so if you do want to plug in a bunch of USB devices for some reason you are not going to be getting the under volt warnings.

If you want it to just work, Umbrel is nice in the fact that it just works.


-Dave

With the death of some old hardware I was using to run one of my nodes plus a few other bits and pieces, I've decided I'd quite like to simplify my always-on home hardware down to a single device.

With that in mind, I'm looking for both hardware and software recommendations for a standalone device capable of running the usual Bitcoin and Lightning nodes, but in addition to that, an Electrum server, an instance of mempool.space, a coinjoin server (be that JoinMarket or Samourai Dojo), and Bisq. I'd also like to potentially use this device to run a variety of non-bitcoin software, such as Pi-hole, personalized cloud storage, potentially a home media server, that sort of thing. Having looked in to it a bit, it seems that Umbrel might be the most straightforward way to do all this, and can run everything I've listed above except Bisq (although an app appears to be in the works).

My first question is whether anyone who has experience with this kind of thing would disagree about using Umbrel and would suggest just running something like Debian (or any other Linux distro)?

My second question is whether anyone could suggest some hardware which would be most appropriate for this. My main considerations are low power usage and being powerful enough to run everything I've listed above. I had originally looked at a Raspberry Pi 4, but I have some concerns about whether it could handle everything listed. At the moment I'm sort of considering the Orange Pi 5. I don't actually need it to be a single board computer at all - I'm just looking for energy efficiency with good enough hardware.