As I have mini-PC Elite LIVA Z2V ECS N4100, 4 GB, eMMC 64 GB, , 8TB Internal SSD (Samsung 870 QVO SATA III 2.5-Inch), linked to a router by the cable LAN, all available for experiments I installed and tried Umbrel 1.4.2 to run BTC Knots.
It synced 100% within 5 days with visible progress with CPU 4 threads load variations between 7%-75% and RAM use up to 3 GB from 3,8 available. However after Knots version updated the web UI was lost and the UMBREL 1.2 system became dead …
I decided to try DIY Start9OS 0.3.5.1 on this HW, installed it sucessully, added BTC Knots from community and run.
After the first 24h, it synced for 17%, after 48 → 19,5% after 72h → 21,3%, after 96 h → 22,6%.
It look as it got stuck somewhere and would never finish.
Please share your opinion regarding possible reasons to help in understanding the causes e.g.:
Could it be TOR? (measuring the speedtest in Firefox next tab of Smart9OS web UI showed download/upload 60MB/60MB instead of normal 600MB/60MB for nearby notebook)
Should Wi-Fi service be somehow deactivated ? (it is as it is, normally HW active after Linux type installations, however not used and kept without connections, but I could not find the way deactivate it in Start9OS)
Bitcoin will not work on a 4GB device in 2025. You’d need a computer capable of running Bitcoin, which now has a UTXO set well in excess of 8GB (I’d say 12GB RAM is a good minimum).
Your understanding of available reported RAM is also slightly flawed and has perhaps led to some confusion. For example, if I have have a tiny beer cooler with space for 4 cans of beer and I want to fix a six pack it in, then I have 100% free space since the six pack doesn’t fit. Not a great analogy, but it’s Monday afternoon.
Thanks,
for clarification: The same LIVA miniPC perfectly well run BTC Core and Bitcoin knots after setting Swap File
sudo fallocate -l 2G /swapfile
etc.
So it was proved already for at least one year that this HW configuration is capable to run Core or Knots + LND +Electr.
I’d be happy to help! I’m not clear on the question, from the conversation though. But I’ll take shot.
If you’re going to load an 8+GB UTXO set into 4GB of RAM, you’re going to have severe performance issues. If your drive has very high I/O, you may be able to “get away” with this configuration for the time being. But if you’re setting up new Bitcoin node, the initial block verification and sync will take an unreasonable amount of time.
@Rexter Thanks!
If you can, please share your understanding why the BTC Core & Knows versions were pretty fast on the same HW in UmbrelOS 1.4.2?
It took 5 days to sync the all blocks up to 100%.
Now under Start9OS 351 it has been running already for 5 days reaching 31%.
I don’t know anything about UmbrelOS 1.4.2. But I do know their base server comes with 16GB of RAM. If UmbrelOS works better on that DIY device, you may want to stick with that. I suspect it won’t. There’s an important distinction to be had between “did” and “will.”
@moreloub - I asked the same question and have not received a satisfactory answer. There is something unique to Start9 min requirements that is being shared as a min requirement for all bitcoin nodes which is incorrect…it is a min requirement for Start9 to run Bitcoin, specifically Bitcoin Knots syncing process. I gave up having this same conversation and let my old MacMini sync with Knots with repeated RPC errors, and it took over a month, but now it works great as a Knots node with zero issues. I am still convinced there is an issue here worth looking at that is being portrayed as a problem with min hardware specs for Start9 + Bitcoin + Knots specific to non-standard hardware set up…
On your mini-PC, did it have a wifi controller on it that you are not using (I saw you were also using a LAN cable)? I ask, because my MacMini also had a wifi controller and I do not see a way to disable it in the OS. I was wondering if StartOS was trying to use it despite it not being connected and that is why it kept ‘ramming into a wall’ with RPC errors…just a theory I had.
Hi Rexter and community!
May you and possibly others who aware of the issue, share experiences about configuring resources available for Knots to run faster?
The main practical (and theoretical) issue is:
Why BTC sync on Start9OS 3.5.1 DIY runs significantly slower than on Umbrel 1.4.2 on the same HW ?
There was practical experience of running both for several months, however I decided to stick to Start9OS as more clean, secure and protected solution.
HW: miniPC Liva Z2-4100 CPU 4 core / 4GB / 7TB fast SSD, LAN cable to router, internet 600/60.
After increasing RAM to 8 GB it became a bit faster but still progressing 2-3 % per day already the forth week with very frequent delays “Timed out. Retrying soon…”.
The actual use of RAM by Knots (the only running service beside Start9OS itself !) is about 1,6-1,8 GB statistically.
I guess that some resource tuning can improve the results.
Any experiences and ideas guys?
I am interested to know the difference, and still plan to test this. But I’ve had limited time. Here is where I am so far:
Three machines, as identical as I can, with available hardware. These are the HP Elitedesk 800 G2 Mini PC
They have an Intel Core i5-6000
4GB PC4 RAM
1TB NVMe SSD
My plan is to run Bitcoin Knots 28.1.0 on each
Ubuntu 24.04
StartOS 0.3.5~1
Umbrel 1.4.2
I’ll be doing the IBD with default settings, – Clearnet enabled.
Yes, wi-fi is enable by default! It can be switched only using Debian terminal and relevant commands. I can do it , have not done yet due to shortage of time & root access limitation in Start9OS.
However, I share your suspicion!
Hope Rexter will clarify the issues during his experiment.
Incorrect and unvalidated statement.
It works on any HW with 4 GB/1TB SSD however runs slower compared to computing with more resources.
Tested and proved.
Okay, I ended up going with Bitcoin 29.1. I would have preferred to use 28.1 since that the version we were on then this conversation started. But Umbrel doesn’t provide an easy way to install a previous version.
I’m on a 1GB/s Internet connection, so I’m planning on just starting all three of these at the same time, and see how it goes. Fresh install on Bitcoin Knots 29.1, with default settings:
I don’t know of any reason wifi would be an issue here. If the interface is not connected, I would expect it to simply be ignored, as it would on any Debian based system. Now if wifi is configured, and the server is plugged in via Ethernet, perhaps there might be a conflict of some sort, but I really don’t think so.
These three Mini PC don’t have wifi, but I can add usb wifi adapters if you want me to. I think I have three identical adapters I could use.
I’m going to start the IBD for all three of them at 03:00 UTC. I can always delete, and start over if anyone wants me to make any changes to the test environment. But I’d prefer to know before I start.
