Go-ethereum: SSD too small to store the blockchain : Create a second datadir ?

[Sovxx]

System information

Geth version: 1.7.2
OS & Version: Linux

Issue

Many regular users have a computer with a rather small SSD and a large HDD.
For them, there are only 2 choices :

• use the speed of the SSD and quickly run out of storage space
• or use the space of HDD but basically never sync because it is too slow.
  Which is not really great !

Suggested enhancement :

In addition the existing --datadir parameter, add these 2 optional parameters :
--datadir_maxsize : max size in Gb of the main folder, typically on the SSD, storing the settings and the recent blocks of the blockchain
--data2dir : the second folder for storing the most of the blockchain

[karalabe]

Hmm, an alternative would be to split the database between the stuff that's immutable and (almost) never changes such as blocks, transactions, receipts, bloom filters; and have a separate database for the state, which gets updated like crazy. This could have a potential benefit of rotating the state database from time to time, thus doing a somewhat guerrilla state pruning.

[stale[bot]]

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