Hi
I installed StartOS on an old Lenovo Laptop, but now realizing the HDD is only 240 GB.
Can I attach an external USB HDD (1TB) and somehow tell StartOS to use this for Bitcoin Core ?
I want to run a full node, among other things because I would like to run mempool on my Start9.
Any experience or tips you can share ? Or should I just try to install Start9 directly onto the external HDD, and ignore the internal drive ?
Many thanks
Chris
PS: I’m happy to use the CLI, I’m just not sure what the commands would be so that Start9 runs on the main HDD but puts the blockchain onto the external disk.
Unfortunately there’s no currently supported way to just add a second disk to a service’s container.
The easiest way to do what you want is probably to just start over fresh (assuming you don’t have data you care about yet). You would pick the 240GB drive as the installation target for StartOS and then pick the USB 1TB as your data drive: https://docs.start9.com/latest/guides/flashing/flashing-x86
If you wanted to ditch one of the drives you could follow this:
But beware, a USB drive can only be chosen as the data drive, not the OS drive. So you would need an internal 1TB SSD if you wanted to use only the 1TB drive.
I’ve just installed StartOS on the A1283 Mac Mini which has a 4TB external USB Drive so I can run Bitcoin Knots as a full node, but I’m not finding a way in Knots to config a data directory, then I found this forum post, but neither of the links for manually selecting a ‘Data’ drive vs an Install drive are working (both 404’s) and I’ve tried reinstalling StartOS 3.5.1 from the USB, but I only see ‘select drive’ and am unsure when to select the data drive… any help is appreciated!
Hey Mammoth! So, good news is you don’t have to worry about it. The Knots and Core packages are setup to decide where the data directory goes by default. This makes things way easier for later package dependences (lightning etc). So just go ahead and install Knots. It might ask you to just look at the config settings first, but most of the time the defaults are totally fine.
Thanks - I’m loving StartOS so far - a few things:
I did not have the USB external disk connected when I was installing the first time, I just reinstalled to check my steps and was able to select the USB drive as the ‘data disk’ AFTER the reboot when the USB drive was removed (maybe I didn’t remove my USB disk and was in a loop reinstalling lol).
I’ve been running Bitcoin node on Linux Raspberry PI 4 and loved the configurability of the Settings/Preferences options in app, but despise the need to be a Linux cmd line guru just to keep the OS stable, so I’ve been excited about moving to StartOS. I understand StartOS is NOT for LInux gurus, so its perfect for me as I am NOT a Linux guru, but taking away ‘basic’ (or even advanced) config settings for apps/services seems to be a bridge too far IMO. Is there a way to edit these settings manually on StartOS? I was hoping going into Developer Mode (clicking Manage 5 times) would let me but I did not see that…
Letting apps decide by default without verifying where the app data is does not work when downloading the blockchain, especially when you need to run a full node (vs pruned). I’d hate to wait days of downloading, only to find out my external drive was not being used and I have to fix it and start downloading all over again…
Is there a way to see and/or change the app data drives / folders?
I appreciate the enthusiasm! If you’re not a Linux guru now, it’s a fun rabbit hole to dive down I assure you. But, since we’re aiming to provide a more simplified (yet feature rich) product, we don’t currently support multidrive setups. It would have some unexpected downstream affects for other packages.
I’ve had a similar setup; old mac mini with external HDD. The internal drive was 500GB and the external drive 2TB.
If your internal and external drives are different sizes, you may be able to tell by going to the home page (start9 logo), select ‘Monitor’ and scroll to the lower entry for ‘DISK’. If set up correctly, then Capacity should match your external drive size.
I would call that a dual drive setup. And you can only choose this during the initial setup. You can even use a third drive for backup.
If you want to do a dual drive setup, you need to makes sure the external drive is formatted ext4 first. Then, after you install StartOS on the internal drive, you’ll have the opportunity to select the external during the initial setup. This will cause all services, as well as their associated data to be stored on the external drive. As of StartOS 0.3.5, granular control of service containers is not supported. They’re all on the same drive.
This being the case, you will likely have a poor experience with this setup. Especially running Bitcoin, and associated services. The transfer speeds over USB on a 2009 machine simply isn’t high enough for this to work well. This might be okay for something a lot less i/o intensive.
Rexter - very helpful to understand. Wish I had picked up on this nuance during set up., Looks like I’ll upgrade my internal disk and use the external disk on a newer machine as you are correct…I’ve been away all weekend while downloading the full blockchain and its only 70% complete (was 20% when I left). Looks like I’m going to have lots of spare hardware… yay.
A single large drive is best for StartOS. You can easily transfer your system to a new larger drive, when you are ready. You just need a way of having both drives connected at the same time. It can be an internal port, or even a USB adapter.
