I was checking out pruned nodes and I'm considering using one for a personal project, but I've got a few questions. From what I've gathered, a pruned node runs the same software but you just set the prune factor in the config file.
I'm looking at this guide for reference: https://www.vpsbg.eu/docs/how-to-install-a-full-or-pruned-bitcoin-node
So here are my questions:
What's the deal with using prune=550? What does that number really mean? Can we tweak that value?
Also, how much disk space do I actually need for the pruned node?
Prune 550 simply means you are going to be downloading but storing 550mb worth of block chain data. And by default it means you will be syncing the whole blockchain but retaining the most recent block chain data of 550mb size.
It is actually customizeable but mainly to higher sizes of 1GB or even more. Running a prune node is usually done when you don't have sufficient disk space if not i would advise you download and sync totally with the block chain from Genesis block till date.
So if you are running a prune node make sure you storage is above the customized storage for example if you are running prune 550 , it is recommended you have up to 300mb of disk space free to avoid lagging or syncing issues relating to low storage. Also make sure you have a good RAM of at least 4Gb or even more so lagging won't be an issue also.
It should be noted that using 4GB Ram for syncing makes it slower I.e the higher the Ram used for syncing the faster synchronization, the Ram size as more effect in your syncing speed than your disk and so if your disk size meet the requirements to run node, you can try to increase your RAM in order to improve the whole process
In order to improve the syncing process, even the entire bitcoin Core performance, after setting your prone size use:
[CHALLENGE] Run A Bitcoin Node: 14 Days To 14 Merits
In case you might face any challenges during setting your node you can check that thread, since there other members running a prune node
This is wrong. You have to download the entire blockchain, even if you run a pruned node.
If you set the prune limit to x GB, you would download the entire blockchain, but store only x GB of that. That doesn't mean you only download x GB of the blockchain.
pruned nodes download all the blocks, but delete the raw block once you finish building the databases and verifying the validity of the blocks.
The number 550 indicates the minimum, which is the value of two days of blocks. Assuming that a block is created in an average of 10 minutes, this means 288 blocks, 550/288 = ~2MB.
Does it mean that the downloaded data will only be 550 mb, but will start to download the genesis block then will delete the later block data replacing the new downloaded one so on and so forth? Or it will really download the whole current size of bitcoin blockchain then will delete the old block data and retain the new one 550 mb in size.
Another questions, will you still called the pruned node as full node? What's the difference of it on full node aside from saving it on smaller data? How about the weigh of "supports" on the bitcoin blockchain, does it matter?
A pruned node starts from downloading the genesis block, but it prunes old blocks and stores the most recent blocks and the UTXO set.
When it comes to validating transactions and blocks, there is no difference between a pruned node and a full nodes.
With both, you validate transactions and help the network to be more decentralized.
The downside of a pruned node is that you would have to redownload the blockchain, if you load a new wallet
Is this included the imported wallet file too?
Thanks for the answers btw, i will rethink to run a node again but pruned only as i don't have enough space for it, at least 100gb is enough i think.
Yes.
If you run a prune node, you would have to redownload the blockchain whenever you need to reindex or rescan the whole blockchain.
If pruning is enabled, you can only rescan the blocks that are not pruned yet and still exist in your hard drive.
You can avoid re-scanning the blockchain by importing private keys using
In this way, you will avoid rescan, or by making sure of the blocks you need by adjusting prune=550 to the number of blocks you need, as I mentioned above (550 is enough blocks for two days only).
Thanks for your answers hosseinimr93 Yamane_Keto PX-Z Amphenomenon, especially to hosseinimr93, the information provided was priceless.
If we have to download/sync the full blockchain then it isn't cool at all, i was thinking for pruned nodes we only had to sync the last blocks, and that would be cool and fast. But i was wrong it would take the same time to have a full node as a pruned one.
And the resync on the new wallet is something that i don't like at all, it even sounds like a nightmare.
I will leave the thread open for those who have more questions about this kind of nodes.
This is bad advice! You should never give root access to anything that doesn't need it.
Here's what I use on my server:
Note that 4 GB dbcache is low for the IBD, but I don't want to give it 16 GB continuously. Normal file cache can handle it anyway. I simply extracted the compressed file in a home directory, and run it with user permissions. There's no need to edit config files, all options can be added to the starting command.
The 500 GB upload target is a daily limit, only set to prevent crazy things, but never came close to that amount.
It's the minimum amount. I've used 100000 in the past, that's enough to load any wallet.dat that hasn't been used for a year.
You'll need another 11 GB for chainstate, so if you prune to 550 MB, 12 GB is the minimum. And this number keeps growing.
You could download someone else's pruned blockchain, but don't do this. The only way to be absolutely sure your data is correct is to sync from scratch. Verify, don't trust.
Note that you don't need to resync if you create a new wallet. You may need to resync if you load an old wallet.
Running a Bitcoin node, either Full node or Prune node, you will have to do IBD (Initial Blockchain Download) and this step takes most of your time.
With Full node, you will store the whole blockchain after IBD and top it up with new blocks' data.
With Prune node, you will store latest blocks' data till your prune node size, that is set up by yourself.
Bitcoins' Initial Block Download.