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Quick question to whoever has a full node running
12 sats \ 11 comments \ @LIGHT21 18 Feb 2023 bitcoin
How long did it take you to setup your full node ?
Since yesterday I m trying to download the blockchain using a HP Prodesk Mini (dont want to spend money on a overpriced Raspi 4), a 1TB SSD with a download speed of 400MB/s.
On top of that my SSD gets burning hot about 40-44degrees and there are times where it gets stuck on one block for a couple of minutes, currently it says something like 2-3 days for the download to finish.
Is all of that normal?
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11 sats \ 2 replies \ @DarthCoin 18 Feb 2023
yes is normal. Is not only about downloading, is also about validating all blocks. Download is not the main problem but the validation could take time.
If you really want to do it faster, you could just copy the entire blockchain data (including the indexes) from another synced node. Then yes, you just have to restart it.
Just have patience and don't panic.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @LIGHT21 OP 18 Feb 2023
Okey, good if thats normal.. but does that even make a big difference? It would still have to validate the blocks right?
I m going to keep it running as it is for now, it will be done eventually... I was just a little worried about the heat the SSD is generating plus the "freezes" on some blocks.
Thanks for the responds.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @DarthCoin 18 Feb 2023
Yes, is normal to be a bit more warm the drive. It is doing a lot of I/O for those validations. Just have patience. You could start the bitcoin logs to see what is doing in real time. For more is getting closer to today's blocks it will be slower and slower. Patience is the key.
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10 sats \ 1 reply \ @Wumbo 18 Feb 2023
2-3 days is not uncommon in my experience.
I would also add, don't be "tricked" by the initial speed. In my experience the 2nd half of the blockchain will take longer then the 1st half. I would assume because larger blocks and more transactions to confirm in each block.
While you wait you could rig up an extra PC fan to point at the SSD.
What OS are you running on the machine?
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LIGHT21 OP 18 Feb 2023
yea, true I m aware of the increase in blocksize the further I m into the download/validation. For now I cool some aluminum piece and basically sandwich the SSD with it so the heat can at least be conducted by it but I might add a fan aswell, thanks for the idea.
I m running it on Win10 but I want to move it to linux later on (since i m not that familiar with it rn), this is kind of a test run.
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0 sats \ 5 replies \ @richnost 18 Feb 2023
This sounds reasonable. Higher spec machines might be able to get through the whole chain in a day or so, but older or less-powerful hardware can take a few days.
This is why bitcoiners get prickly about block size. The more bloated a chain gets, the more it raises the barrier to entry, centralizing the network around a smaller amount of machines capable of IBD and timely validation.
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0 sats \ 4 replies \ @LIGHT21 OP 18 Feb 2023
I m guessing the main thing to upgrade here would be the CPU because the SSD is a brand new one. I m running it on a i5 6500 but you are right the bigger the blockchain/blocksize gets the longer it would take you to validate all of it.
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @richnost 18 Feb 2023
Thinking more about this. Have you tried connecting the machine directly to the home router? Wifi can be a bottleneck.
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1 sat \ 0 replies \ @LIGHT21 OP 19 Feb 2023
Well I use a extender but yes its connected through ethernet. Wifi would only get me about 100MB/s
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0 sats \ 1 reply \ @richnost 18 Feb 2023
Your bandwidth and cache allocated in the bitcoin.conf might also be a factor.
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0 sats \ 0 replies \ @LIGHT21 OP 19 Feb 2023
Hope I can get some more out of that, will look into it.
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