Seeing way too many people ordering raspberry pi nodes.
For the last time friends:
Stop doing this!
RPi is A TERRIBLE platform for node running!
Just buy an old used workstation that some company is throwing away. Probably way cheaper, 10x more powerful and don't have to be constrained by ARM64
Where were you 2 years ago when I built my node? Rude.
It was cheap 2 years ago so it made sense.
exactly.
i bought pi for 5 bucks and pi4 for 30 which makes a lot of sense and gave me two full blown computers to play around with millions of useage cases. people who never had one, make comments about this great computer which are not even true. i want to see the electricity comparison. i do not believe that either.
This is good to know, thanks! What about energy cost for running? Significant difference or no?
Instead of 6 cents you might pay 9 cents for energy
Haha touché, I’m going to switch from R-pi to old workstation soon
Get something from 2017 or newer. This was with €0.18/kWh electricity rates, which is unfortunately no longer true where I live.
IMO - The HP EliteDesk 800 G2 Mini i5 is great alternative to a Pi. About 35watts (vs 5 watts for a Pi) but syncs WAY faster and a nicer form factor for me. Run Start9 on it and it’s a great machine.
your raspi runs on 5w power maxing out at 6w
a laptop starts at 20w and can consume 200w depending on the processor and graphics card
the raspi is a good minicomputer. do not buy it for a stupid price.
i got the pi for 5 bucks and the pi4 for 30 bucks.
very happy with both.
you can learn so many things with the raspi it is mindblowing.
learning is not for everyone
I’m in the process of upgrading from ras pi to an old Lenovo
Trying to set it up as a VM
Running mynode but keep getting errors
I had no problem running on the pi but mynode client I downloaded for VMs is acting up
Anyone have any ideas why?
May be these guides - written #[4] help. Made everything pretty straight forward for me. 🤙
RPI4 with 8gb ram works great imho. No issues. Full node & lightning node with plenty of other umbrel apps installed. What’s so bad about a Pi?
Do you run a channel rebalancer Cron job every few minutes, or a channel fee updater? Do you run a CloudFlare tunnel to get clearnet?
As of now I go through tor, I don’t want clearnet connections tbh. I am fairly novice in terms of lightning channels I have 3, no need to run a rebalancer rn.
If your node ever gets big then that rpi will fail you. Yes with three channels over Tor fine. But now you're constrained, don't have the options to get mich bigger, and you probably overpaid for the rpi relative to abused workstation
I don’t ever plan on using my node for more than personal use if that makes sense. Not trying to run a lightning node farm to earn fees and such. I just want to verify my own transactions. All in all I think the RPI cost me like 250$ cad? Add a nice case for it, fan, ssd, total cost was about 500$ cad. I bought a fancy custom crypto cloaks case for it though which def made the build more expensive.
I got these 3 computers for $175 on Kijiji, then my dad just got me 2 laptops for free from his work all of which are like 10-50x faster than an RPi
Also, as we put more demands on our nodes (maybe run them also as nostr relays or personal clouds) you get additional benefits when buying a real PC
Anyway your money your choice but to me it doesn't make sense!
Agree about Raspberry Pis but…
> Constrained by ARM64
What?
There is some node software that doesn't work on RPi architecture, ie CloudFlare tunnels
Oh got it. But that might have have changed. I see aarch64 packages on their release pages
https://github.com/cloudflare/cloudflared/releases
Also is Golang so it _should_ compile for a number of ISAs and OSs without any effort.
Bitcoin Core/Sparrow/Linux on the same device is undefeated
Add a fulcrum electrum server on the same device as well and you have my go to set up.
Buying an old refurbished office desktop computer, early i5 or even an i3, with 8gb ram and a brand new SSD will serve you much better in the long run. I did exactly this as an experiment and cost me under £100 all in.
calm down people. raspi is cheap and small.
nothing else can run a node that cheap and small.
raspi pi is a great computer. you can do almost anything with it.
nothing beats the VALUE
It's literally the worst value, no idea what you're talking about.
People are legitimately throwing away computers that are 10x faster in a similar footprint.
your message shows that you do not know raspberry pi. what you can do with it.
learn it here, scroll down, for home, for industry:
it is much smaller than any computer, you can stack it, it is more versatile.
learn before you write
here's a sat Fred! Get yourself a better computer!
haha byrger thank you i use 5 computers including 2 raspis
Yeah I've only had 3 of them and ran two nodes that got way too big that RPi crashed constantly
Enjoy overpaying for your shit computer though
I just did this. Its not exactly easy for the non technical. But worth it in the end.
PoW
If RaspPi4 was easy to find and at original cost, this would be more OK. Plus ppl build the RPi computer which (I think) gives them some more ownership/pride of the device.
Definitely buying an older desktop/miniPC is faster/easier, and likely even cheaper with RPi4 scarcity.
How to make a Bitcoin node on old pc
Running on rpi3/4 for years. 4 hasn't failed me 3 was underpowered. Uses comparatively tiny amounts of energy compared to a pc.
With images like raspiblitz easy to set up and keep up to date. I don't get the hate for rpis. They are a great way to run a node.
i use an old T420 ThinkPad running https://mynodebtc.com/ - BTC, LN, Nostr Relay and much more all in one...
Havent thought about an SBC since...
The software is not as stable? I have a old computer I don’t use as much as I used to. Would I still be able to have a bitcoin node and lightning node running with being able to use it occasionally for other things including sparrow wallet?
I’ve just read before people suggesting having dedicated machines for nodes.
I did recently order a raspi. I was thinking I could just run a bitcoin node on it. Then use my old computer to run another Bitcoin node and lightning node.
There's a lot of buzz around your post.
Added to the https://member.cash/hot feed
Indeed. It's a cool fact that you can run a Bitcoin node on a toy computer.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
