Running an Ethereum Classic node requires downloading and syncing an entire copy of the blockchain. One of the most demanding requirements to support a copy of the blockchain is storage, and scaling that storage since the blockchain is a continuously growing database. Syncing a new mainnet node can take a few hours, days, or weeks (depending on your setup of course). In the event of a client bug or network incident, recycling a node from scratch could be expensive downtime.
In collaboration with Storj Labs, the ETC Labs team has demonstrated how it can massively increase the syncing performance of an Ethereum Classic node in a trustless manner with Core-geth’s Freezer feature and the Storj decentralized cloud.
“Blockchains are breaking into more mainstream use cases, and enabling the simple and scalable growth of networks is critical in driving this adoption. Decentralized cloud storage solutions, like Tardigrade, offer the ability to store state history in a way that is secure, decentralized, and highly resilient to common attacks. We’re excited to be working with ETC Labs and its community of miners to store state history on the decentralized cloud—making it easier and faster to spin up new nodes, greatly reducing the expense of downtime,” said John Gleeson, Storj Labs VP of Operations.
James Wo, Founder and Chairman of ETC Labs added, “incorporating Tardigrade decentralized cloud storage into the process for GETH has allowed us to accelerate sync times, making it much more efficient to spin up new mining nodes around the world. This helps miners avoid expensive downtime, create a more diverse set of endpoints, and contribute to a larger, more secure blockchain.”
“This partnership with Storj, is great way forward for clients to take ownership of their data that serves their usage needs. Using Storj for long-term data storage helps developers and infrastructure providers keep productivity high and down time minimal,” said Zane, Member of the ETC Core development team.
Use-cases
- Data-recovery: If you lose your chain data, then you can sync from the latest block height of the remote ancient store.
- Sync speed: The ancient-store data basically acts as a backup of the blockchain. If the ancient-store contains x amount of history, then that’s x amount of history you don’t need to download and sync from scratch. Theoretically, days of syncing can be done in hours.
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