Post
Topic
Board Development & Technical Discussion
Re: setting up full bitcoin node
by
odolvlobo
on 10/12/2020, 19:23:54 UTC
icant (20$vs30$), getting an SSD for a node makes no sense

Actually, it does make sense.

The Disk I/O is most often the bottleneck when syncing the blockchain. A SSD can speed this up.

Storing the whole blockchain on a SDD is not necessary, but at least for the chainstate where lots of read/writes are done. This will significantly increase the synchronizing process.

I set up nodes on my PC and on a RPi 4, both using a disk for storage.

Initial sync:
The initial synch took a couple days on the PC and about a week on the RPi.

Ongoing:
I run the node on my PC only occasionally and it is frustrating that it takes an hour or so to synch when I open the wallet. On the other hand, my RPi node is always running so it is always synched. The disk has no problem keeping up.

Summary:
With a disk, initial synch is slow, and synching only when you open the wallet can result in long delays; but there are no problems if the node is always running. If this is ok, then you can save a lot of money by using a disk rather than an SSD. Keep in mind that although an SSD is faster, synching still takes time.