new desktop needed

[jediobi1]

hey everyone i need a new computer that is fast and has plenty of storage space, it will be doing nothing except running crypto coin wallets, so i am wondering should i build one or is there a prebuilt from dell or hp or something that i can max out and that would be good?

thanks in advance

 

[Pinky]

It sounds like your main focus will be on storage, not processing power since you're not actually mining(?).

What you're doing is creating a node, correct?

https://news.bitcoin.com/cost-full-bitcoin-node/

Get a cheap prebuilt and upgrade the storage.

 

[jediobi1]

no not doing a full node these wallets will be used to store and send coins aswell as stake coins

 

[jediobi1]

maybe a dual cpu system with lots of ram and storage or something, any advice is welcome

 

[HankB]

I don't understand the need for processing power for a Bitcoin wallet, but I'm not involved in the crypto-currency space.

What I would want is absolute reliability. For a start, you would want something with a server motherboard and ECC RAM. These are going to be a bit more spendy than an ordinary desktop. You can find retired equipment that would probably meet your needs on ebay or the manufacturers website. If you know someone who works where they have a data center, ask about retired equipment. I got a Dell 1U rack server with 2 Xeon processors, 32GB ECC RAM and 2 15K 300GB SAS drives for the asking. (I returned the drives since I had larger drives to put in the case.) Be aware that servers are designed for a server room or closet and can be pretty loud.

The next thing would be a bulletproof file system. For this use I'm migrating to ZFS which supports various RAID configurations and checksums all data, correcting any errors found. This is on Linux. It is also well supported by BSD and Solaris. There is dedicated NAS software that runs BSD under the surface and probably uses ZFS. (FreeNAS, for example.) That's probably going to provide the most solid storage for a home/hobbyist system.

The other thing that I can think of is backup. RINB! (RAID Is Not Backup.) It provides redundancy and can shield you from disk failures, but if you accidentally delete or corrupt one of your files RAID is not going to help. (ZFS snapshots can, however.) Likewise you need offsite backup. If a bad guy breaks in and grabs all of your equipment or the place where your equipment is stored is destroyed by fire, nothing but an off site backup is going to protect.

I'm sure there others here that work with servers on a day to day basis that can offer better suggestions. I'm a hobbyist sysadmin. (And professional developer. The only thing scarier than a S/W guy with a screwdriver is a S/W guy with a soldering iron. )

That said, what I do understand about blockchain is that it is distributed. Perhaps that provides for correction of errors on any single node. I would expect that to have been built into the initial design. But then again, I also would have expected it to be designed in a way to prevent theft, bt I'm apparently wrong about that.

 

[jediobi1]

I don't understand the need for processing power for a Bitcoin wallet, but I'm not involved in the crypto-currency space.

What I would want is absolute reliability. For a start, you would want something with a server motherboard and ECC RAM. These are going to be a bit more spendy than an ordinary desktop. You can find retired equipment that would probably meet your needs on ebay or the manufacturers website. If you know someone who works where they have a data center, ask about retired equipment. I got a Dell 1U rack server with 2 Xeon processors, 32GB ECC RAM and 2 15K 300GB SAS drives for the asking. (I returned the drives since I had larger drives to put in the case.) Be aware that servers are designed for a server room or closet and can be pretty loud.

The next thing would be a bulletproof file system. For this use I'm migrating to ZFS which supports various RAID configurations and checksums all data, correcting any errors found. This is on Linux. It is also well supported by BSD and Solaris. There is dedicated NAS software that runs BSD under the surface and probably uses ZFS. (FreeNAS, for example.) That's probably going to provide the most solid storage for a home/hobbyist system.

The other thing that I can think of is backup. RINB! (RAID Is Not Backup.) It provides redundancy and can shield you from disk failures, but if you accidentally delete or corrupt one of your files RAID is not going to help. (ZFS snapshots can, however.) Likewise you need offsite backup. If a bad guy breaks in and grabs all of your equipment or the place where your equipment is stored is destroyed by fire, nothing but an off site backup is going to protect.

I'm sure there others here that work with servers on a day to day basis that can offer better suggestions. I'm a hobbyist sysadmin. (And professional developer. The only thing scarier than a S/W guy with a screwdriver is a S/W guy with a soldering iron. )

That said, what I do understand about blockchain is that it is distributed. Perhaps that provides for correction of errors on any single node. I would expect that to have been built into the initial design. But then again, I also would have expected it to be designed in a way to prevent theft, bt I'm apparently wrong about that.

i will keep all of this in mind thanks, and i will also expand on what i need, the wallets themselves take up a lot of space with their block chains and the wallets are not optimized very well and can run slow and run like crap so i am hoping more cpu and more ram and more hdd space will help a lot.

 

[Helgaiden]

Does it need to be new? If not, look into the HP Z800 or Z820 prebuilts. Used they can go for decent prices, are meant to do sort of what you're trying to accomplish (process large data loads and have lots of storage). Also, they can have tons of ram on them. The Z800s only go to dual 6-cores but the Z820s can go up to dual 8 cores, maybe even dual 10 cores.

 

[jediobi1]

okay so i got a z800 with dual xeons 12 cores total and some where between 48 and 64gb of ram and it can hold i think 5 hard drives, i want to get WD drives but which ones should i get? black, blue, red etc?

 

[Lochekey]

How critical is the disk speed versus how much reliability do you need? How large of drives are you looking to use and what is your budget. I personally am running HGST drives in my home server but if you want to stick with WD I would say stick with Reds at the minimum for reliability and then look at Red pro or RE drives for increased performance and reliability.

 

[jediobi1]

dont really have a budget and it can hold at max 5 drives so i am thinking maybe 1 or 2tb each i have never done a raid before so not sure if i should do that or not

 

[Lochekey]

How much storage space are you really talking with these wallets. You may do better by getting a single high performance SSD drive and avoid the complications of RAID and then just have a strict backup plan in place to cover your reliability needs.

 

[jediobi1]

How much storage space are you really talking with these wallets. You may do better by getting a single high performance SSD drive and avoid the complications of RAID and then just have a strict backup plan in place to cover your reliability needs.

few gigs each

 

[Lochekey]

Ok so based on your total expected amount of wallets are we talking 150GB or 2TB?

 

[jediobi1]

Ok so based on your total expected amount of wallets are we talking 150GB or 2TB?

i would have to say 2tb as each wallet grows every day so one day it could be 5gigs but give it a month or more and it could be 20gigs

 

[Lochekey]

I would just look at buying either a single 2 TB add or 2 1TB SSDs and use that. Messing with raid can be finicky and really should be done with a good raid controller so by the time you factor in the cost of the drives and the controller you can basically buy the ssds.

 

[HankB]

My $0.02 on capacity: I wouldn't buy much more than I think I need for the next couple years for two reasons. 1) Drives continue to get cheaper for the most part. 2) In a couple years it will be good policy to move your data to new drives. Personally I would get two drives and mirror them. But I run Linux and the S/W RAID is pretty mature. OTOH, your box may have an enterprise grade H/W RAID adapter in which case you might use that instead. Just know how to monitor it so if one drive does go bad, you get some kind of warning so you can deal with it before the other fails. And remember that RAID is not backup. I would be less concerned about malfunctions or lifetime if you choose to go the SSD route.

 

[jediobi1]

My $0.02 on capacity: I wouldn't buy much more than I think I need for the next couple years for two reasons. 1) Drives continue to get cheaper for the most part. 2) In a couple years it will be good policy to move your data to new drives. Personally I would get two drives and mirror them. But I run Linux and the S/W RAID is pretty mature. OTOH, your box may have an enterprise grade H/W RAID adapter in which case you might use that instead. Just know how to monitor it so if one drive does go bad, you get some kind of warning so you can deal with it before the other fails. And remember that RAID is not backup. I would be less concerned about malfunctions or lifetime if you choose to go the SSD route.

i am not going to do raid but will get 5 2tb hdd and back up the main drive to 4 of them on a weekly or monthly basis i think that should do it

 

[Lochekey]

If you are going to do backups I would do them to an external device versus a hdd in the same system. I backup to a hdd via an external dock. The backup hdd then gets put on a shelf until it is needed again. If you have a faulty power supply or such that takes out your main drive it will likely take out your backup drive at the same time If it is in the same system.