I successfully installed StartOS on a mini PC (
Beelink SER5 PRO Mini PC 8Core AMD Ryzen 7), but it only has 500GB storage. I have an 2TB external drive. When I try to install Bitcoin Core from marketplace, I’m not sure how to select an external drive for the blockchain. Or do I need to reinstall StartOS and have everything on the external drive?
Hi there.
This functionality has been requested before so it is on our rader, however it is not something you can achieve at this point in time. StartOS does not allow you to connect additional drives with the goal of separating data between the two in a pick & choose fasion.
That said, you can of course connect an external drive to your server and then create backups to that external drive, instead of using a Network Folder.
In case you want to expand the storage space of your server, you could use our Transfer Data to a New Drive guide for that, as it is intended for use to in order to increase storage size, storage speed, or just to move your existing server data to new hardware entirely.
So can I install and run StartOS on the external drive?
Does that mean I won’t be able to run a full node on my 500gb mini pc? As far as I’m know, the full blockchain is larger than 500gb, or right up there and 1tb minimum is recommended.
Trying to determine if I’ll be able to run a full node with my current hardware or if I have to scrap it and buy something new.
As you rightly pointed out, the full bitcoin blockchain is over 500GB so that definitely won’t be enough. You can however run a Pruned Node and still connect many services to it, depending on what your use case is of course.
You\d have to do some testing to see how to make it only see the external drive without it trying to pic up the internal drive first, hence me sharing a guide on how to replace one drive for the other with you.
Please read throught he lnk I’ve shared with you as many of your questions are likely to be answered in there.
In addition, you can read the Hardware Spec under our DIY Guide section of our Docs, which details the minimum as well as recommended hardware.
OK yes, I did see the hardware requirements, but wrongly assumed that the 1tb recommendation included external ssd.
I’m not a very technical user, but if I understand correctly, it should be possible to run the OS installed on an external drive, but will require some experimentation on my part to get the machine to run the external drive first. Sorry to ask the same question twice, it wasn’t clear to me if it is actually possible to install and run the OS from an external drive rather than an internal one.
Lastly, I just ran the standard core install from marketplace and it looks like the blockchain is 80% synced after less than a day. I’m assuming this is the pruned node. Is a pruned node the default when you install Core from marketplace?
Yes, you can run either the whole thing (StartOS partition + Data partition) from the external USB drive. It’s not ideal due to speed, but it should work just fine. You could also just open up the mini PC and swap out the drive.
To give you more context, your server has two partitions, the OS and the data. That you can do this means you can also have two whole drives, each with one partition. In your case, you could run the OS on the internal drive (wasting most of it) and then run the data on the USB drive. When you go through the install process, you’ll see it will ask you where to want to install each thing.
When you install Bitcoin Core or Knots from the marketplace, it has a series of configurations you’ll have accepted before you started it. In your case, when it detected little to not drive space, it would have been set to pruned, yes.
Thank you for adding context Stu. I do not remember seeing an option of where to partition my data, though I may have clicked through without realizing. Is this something I can alter after the fact, or would I need to start from scratch to reset where the data is stored?
I am very interested in swapping out for a larger drive so I don’t have to purchase an entirely new computer. I’d like to run a full node, so that is the goal (eventually). I’ll investigate this today.
If I understand correctly, you’re saying I could possibly swap out my internal storage for larger capacity, making my current machine capable of storing the full blockchain?
You’ll be asked to select the disk. If you select a single large disk, StartOS will create the two partitions without asking you any further questions. If StartOS detects two disks (or two pre-created partitions on the disk) then you get the options.
To swap out the drive, you’d open the case, take out one drive, put in the large drive, then boot from the StartOS USB to begin the install process. Specifics depend on your DIY hardware, but that’s all there is to it.
Solved! Swapping out the internal SSD for a 2TB drive worked. Also, going through the install process a second time, paying more attention, I see some of the details I missed during install the first time around.
Additionally, I see the “Pruned” was disabled by default this time, and “Transaction Index” was enabled, so I guess StartOS was able to detect the size of the drive and set the defaults accordingly, which was cool. Everything is syncing as expected now.
Thanks so much to @StuPleb and everyone in the thread. I appreciate everyone’s time!
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