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I just updated my node to 0.12 and its going through its long verification process but I noticed that its not using very much memory/cpu

pi         602 10.5 19.4 352220 184312 ?       Ssl  21:57   1:28 /usr/local/bin/bitcoind -datadir=/home/pi/bitcoinData/.bitcoin -daemon

How can I configure it to optimise all available memory and cpu? I recall a option to bump up the cache from a default of 50 or 100mb but cannot find the option.

I have a 1GB PI 2. Any recommendations on maximum memory to use? I was thinking 900mb if possible.

Thank you for your tips, and any optimizations to make this run best would be great!

Murch
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xenostar
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1 Answers1

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It will by default use all CPU cores available.

However, if the database cache is too small, your node will spend its time fetching and writing database entries from/to disk, rather than verification

You can set the size of the database cache using a bitcoin.conf setting dbcache=N, where N is the number of megabytes of RAM.

Pieter Wuille
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  • Thank you very much Pieter! I did not expect you to answer the question, thanks for taking the time out of your day to solve a minor issue! When upgrading to 12.0 from 11.99, how long do you think the verification process should take for all blocks on a RPi2? error: couldn't connect to server Im getting that after running bitcoin-cli getinfo and its said that for approx 5 hours now. – xenostar May 18 '16 at 04:27
  • @Murch may be able to answer how long, I think it took him several weeks. Not sure what dbcache setting he used. Note that a Pi is always going to be somewhat memory deprived. The UTXO set is 1.5 GB on disk and a multiple of that in memory, so it will be (re)loading parts of that constantly as well. – Jannes May 18 '16 at 11:20
  • @xenostar: I ran a full synchronization on a Raspberry Pi 2 with 12rc01, IIRC it took more than four weeks. – Murch Jun 13 '16 at 15:18