Just means it's not pruned. Currently I run only a pruned node meaning it only holds the last 200GB of the blockchain. An archival node holds the entire blockchain.
This is also why I got a 2TB drive. Currently the full chain is just over 500GB but I want this to be futureproof.
As well as helping the network more, there's things you can do with an archival node that you can't do with a pruned one, e.g. run Electrum X and Mempool.
I plan to run Electrum, Mempool, and BTCPayServer on this.
Thank you for the insight!
One last question… is speed needed at all for this application? I noticed that your ssd is capable of speeds up to 500-ish MB/s. The newer NVMe SSDs would get you to 1000 or more. Possibly 2-3k depending on how your connecting.
Speed matters up to the point where it exceeds the speed of your internet connection if that makes sense.
The slowest part is the initial sync. Once it's synced up to the blockchain it'll run smooth with any modern broadband.
So a faster SSD helps with initial sync assuming your internet connection can keep up with the disk I/O.
Once it has synced up, it doesn't matter.
Any name brand SSD is good for this because reliability is more important than speed after the initial sync, hence going for the cheaper SSD rather than a high end M.2. A Samsung SSD should be reliable regardless and my internet can't reach the speed of an M.2 anyway.
