Are there some recommended approaches for running Bitcoin Core on a laptop with constrained storage capacity? Is it possible to use an external hard drive as the data directory (datadir)? How does this setup work, and would I need to pay attention to?
Thank you in advance to everyone who responds to this question.
Yes, it is not only possible but highly recommended setup as it makes a bit faster the sync and at the same ease the burden of the drive that holds OS.
I would advocate for external SSD instead of HDD to not wait too long time for the completing of the node initial synchronization.
Put down into bitcoin.conf the following entries
dbcache=<M>
# where M equals to 1/4 RAM, for instance if you RAM = 8Gb then dbcache=2048
blocksonly=1
# this will increase the sync speed as it disables node listening and
"stop requesting and relaying transactions unless they are part of the block"datadir=<path to directory on external drive where Bitcoin Core will keep its data>
# For instance my path looks like this datadir=F:/ BitcoinData. Instead of BitcoinDta you can write any name you want