<p>Hard disk drives have been known to sync much slower than SSDs due to their slower read/write speed and higher latency. Even a SATA (non-NVMe) SSD will do a much better job. This also applies to RPC calls that need to read from the disk.</p>
<p>6 Gb/s (768 MB/s) is just the theoretical limit of the interface your drive is connected through, no hard disk drive can actually read or write at this speed.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-04-29T22:07:14.200Z
ahh damn thats kind of what I was starting to realize oh well, thanks
meanthatmuchtoyou
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-04-29T22:43:59.657Z
also if have any memory recommendations seems hard to find larger SSDs like 8TB+ that aren't insanely expensive am thinking about combining nvme's somehow
meanthatmuchtoyou
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-04-29T22:53:18.813Z
Have you considered combining a HDD with a smaller SSD for optional fast storage? The Bitcoin blockchain is currently a little over 500 GB, so even just a 1 TB drive will last you for some time.
Vojtěch Strnad
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-04-29T23:02:22.407Z
No but i will, I ran out of space before thats why I was trying the HDD but I might have messed up the configuration somehow or double synced somehow
meanthatmuchtoyou
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-04-29T23:05:46.037Z
was also an ethereum and btc node on the same computer neither are fully synced right now but i think like 80% each its about 961G I have 3TB so maybe I can use them with the HDD
meanthatmuchtoyou
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-04-30T08:28:31.503Z
Increasing the database cache can dramatically speed up synchronization, especially on disks with slow I/O like spinning ones.
Pieter Wuille
CC BY-SA 4.0
2023-04-29T21:57:11.227Z
2023-04-29T21:57:11.227Z
Vojtěch Strnad
<p>Hi my node is syncing really slowly I have the datadir in an external hard drive connected through usb. Says the data rate for this seagate 12TB is 6Gb/s but the syncing is slow in comparison to when I have synced nodes in the past with internal nvme drives but 2TB is low so I am moving up to a larger hard drive and went with the external.</p>
<p>Any thoughts or someone who experienced similar? Even when communicating with RPC it is slower than normal I thought maybe it was because it was syncing but I am beginning to question it. Thanks for whatever input.</p>
<p>Also my internet is 1gbps upload download and it is connected through ethernet did a speed test to verify.</p>

<bitcoin-core><bitcoind><synchronization><bitcoin-cli><performance>
Mainnet node sync really slowly with 12 tb seagate external hdd says data rate is 6gb/s
meanthatmuchtoyou
# Mainnet node sync really slowly with 12 tb seagate external hdd says data rate is 6gb/s

(Asked by: username_0 on 2023-04-29)

Hi my node is syncing really slowly I have the datadir in an external hard drive connected through usb. Says the data rate for this seagate 12TB is 6Gb/s but the syncing is slow in comparison to when I have synced nodes in the past with internal nvme drives but 2TB is low so I am moving up to a larger hard drive and went with the external.

Any thoughts or someone who experienced similar? Even when communicating with RPC it is slower than normal I thought maybe it was because it was syncing but I am beginning to question it. Thanks for whatever input.

Also my internet is 1gbps upload download and it is connected through ethernet did a speed test to verify.

**Tags:** bitcoin-core, bitcoind, synchronization, bitcoin-cli, performance


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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2023-04-29. Score: 1 | Accepted answer

Hard disk drives have been known to sync much slower than SSDs due to their slower read/write speed and higher latency. Even a SATA (non-NVMe) SSD will do a much better job. This also applies to RPC calls that need to read from the disk.

6 Gb/s (768 MB/s) is just the theoretical limit of the interface your drive is connected through, no hard disk drive can actually read or write at this speed.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: ahh damn thats kind of what I was starting to realize oh well, thanks  
> **username_0**: also if have any memory recommendations seems hard to find larger SSDs like 8TB+ that aren't insanely expensive am thinking about combining nvme's somehow  
> **username_1**: Have you considered combining a HDD with a smaller SSD for optional fast storage? The Bitcoin blockchain is currently a little over 500 GB, so even just a 1 TB drive will last you for some time.  
> **username_0**: No but i will, I ran out of space before thats why I was trying the HDD but I might have messed up the configuration somehow or double synced somehow  
> **username_0**: was also an ethereum and btc node on the same computer neither are fully synced right now but i think like 80% each its about 961G I have 3TB so maybe I can use them with the HDD  
> **username_2**: Increasing the database cache can dramatically speed up synchronization, especially on disks with slow I/O like spinning ones.  

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