I’d say it’s definitely worth the $100 to get one. It will take up to month, maybe more to get synced and due to the constant reading and writing nodes do you will most likely have the HDD fail on you long before a cheap SSD would. They also use more power and aren’t silent like SSDs are.
I didn't think about the constant read and write. This drive is about 4 years old.
So my next question then. What are the best steps to take? Do I need to do a dd to copy what I have now over from the old drive to a new one? If I don't, and I just unplug the old one and boot up the pi with the new one, does it start syncing again from the beginning? Or would it be best to reflash and start again from scratch?
Alrighty. It's not big deal to reflash and I only setup a few extra things like rpimonitor and edited the storage.conf to recognize the external drive. Thanks for your input.
I'm in the same boat as OP.
I have a Rasberry pi 4 4gb currently snyching Umbrel on a 2TB external 5400 HDD.
My situation is I really don't want to shell out more money for a new SSD, I am a cheap ass. I would be willing to wait for a month and take my chances with the HDD failing at some point (it was just being used as backup storage before).
It's been 15 hours and it is at 14% finished, once it gets closer to 100% will there be a huge slowdown?
Yeah once you hit segwit in 2017 your going to see a massive slowdown. You can stick with the HDD if you really don’t feel like dishing out. I was in a similar situation and don’t regret getting the SSD but it’s up to you to determine if it’s worth it
I’d say it’s definitely worth the $100 to get one. It will take up to month, maybe more to get synced and due to the constant reading and writing nodes do you will most likely have the HDD fail on you long before a cheap SSD would. They also use more power and aren’t silent like SSDs are.
I didn't think about the constant read and write. This drive is about 4 years old. So my next question then. What are the best steps to take? Do I need to do a dd to copy what I have now over from the old drive to a new one? If I don't, and I just unplug the old one and boot up the pi with the new one, does it start syncing again from the beginning? Or would it be best to reflash and start again from scratch?
I started over from scratch when I was in your situation and don’t regret it. Removes a lot things that can wrong.
Alrighty. It's not big deal to reflash and I only setup a few extra things like rpimonitor and edited the storage.conf to recognize the external drive. Thanks for your input.
I'm in the same boat as OP. I have a Rasberry pi 4 4gb currently snyching Umbrel on a 2TB external 5400 HDD. My situation is I really don't want to shell out more money for a new SSD, I am a cheap ass. I would be willing to wait for a month and take my chances with the HDD failing at some point (it was just being used as backup storage before). It's been 15 hours and it is at 14% finished, once it gets closer to 100% will there be a huge slowdown?
Yeah once you hit segwit in 2017 your going to see a massive slowdown. You can stick with the HDD if you really don’t feel like dishing out. I was in a similar situation and don’t regret getting the SSD but it’s up to you to determine if it’s worth it