dikaios1517 on Nostr: Power usage is probably worth considering. RAM is a huge factor when syncing the ...
Power usage is probably worth considering.
RAM is a huge factor when syncing the chain. It can be the difference between the process taking over a week vs taking a day or less, so long as your internet connection is not itself a bottleneck. That issue is only going to get worse for low RAM devices as time goes on.
Ideally, you should only have to sync the chain once, but there are situations that could require you to re-download and verify it.
There are two other reasons RAM is important, though. The first is the UTXO set, which must be stored both on your hard drive and in RAM so that the information is readily available for validating new blocks as they come in. This UTXO set takes up a few gigs of RAM all on its own, leaving less available for other processes.
Finally, 8G of RAM might be just fine if Bitcoin Core and maybe Electrs is all you are running on your node. However, if you are going to run a node, it shouldn't just sit on a shelf so you can point at it and say "That's my Bitcoin node." You should USE it! That means you will want to have other services running on it, too. Maybe a lightning implementation like LND or CLN, or a mempool explorer so you don't have to potentially dox what transactions you are interested in by using mempool.space's public website. Or maybe you also want to run a Bitaxe connected to DATUM on your node, so you are using your own node's mempool to construct block templates. You also have Alby Hub or LNBits for hosting lightning wallets and other lightning services. Not to mention running Jam for decentralized coin-joins, or RoboSats for purchasing non-KYC sats.
So, for all of these reasons, I would not be looking at "What's the bare minimum of RAM I can get away with?"
RAM is a huge factor when syncing the chain. It can be the difference between the process taking over a week vs taking a day or less, so long as your internet connection is not itself a bottleneck. That issue is only going to get worse for low RAM devices as time goes on.
Ideally, you should only have to sync the chain once, but there are situations that could require you to re-download and verify it.
There are two other reasons RAM is important, though. The first is the UTXO set, which must be stored both on your hard drive and in RAM so that the information is readily available for validating new blocks as they come in. This UTXO set takes up a few gigs of RAM all on its own, leaving less available for other processes.
Finally, 8G of RAM might be just fine if Bitcoin Core and maybe Electrs is all you are running on your node. However, if you are going to run a node, it shouldn't just sit on a shelf so you can point at it and say "That's my Bitcoin node." You should USE it! That means you will want to have other services running on it, too. Maybe a lightning implementation like LND or CLN, or a mempool explorer so you don't have to potentially dox what transactions you are interested in by using mempool.space's public website. Or maybe you also want to run a Bitaxe connected to DATUM on your node, so you are using your own node's mempool to construct block templates. You also have Alby Hub or LNBits for hosting lightning wallets and other lightning services. Not to mention running Jam for decentralized coin-joins, or RoboSats for purchasing non-KYC sats.
So, for all of these reasons, I would not be looking at "What's the bare minimum of RAM I can get away with?"