Syncing an Ethereum node is largely reliant on IOPS, I/O Per Second. Budget SSDs will struggle to an extent, and some won't be able to sync at all.
This document aims to snapshot some known good and known bad models.
For size, 2TB come recommended as of mid-2022. 1TB can work for now but is getting tight.
High-level, QLC and DRAMless are far slower than "mainstream" SSDs.
IOPS wise, Erigon uses the least by far, then Geth, then Besu, then Nethermind in ascending order of IOPS requirements.
Other than a slow SSD, these are things that can slow IOPS down:
- Heat. Check with
smartctl -x; the SSD should be below 50C so it does not throttle. - TRIM not being allowed. This can happen with some hardware RAID controllers, as well as on macOS with non-Apple SSDs
- On SATA, the controller in UEFI/BIOS set to anything other than AHCI
The drive lists are ordered by interface and alphabetically by vendor name, not by preference.
"Mainstream" models that can sync mainnet Geth in a reasonable amount of time. Use M.2 NVMe if your machine supports it. Note that in some cases older "Performance" PCIe 4 models can go for less than a PCIe 3 "mainstream" drive - shop around.
M.2 NVMe "mainstream" - TLC, DRAM, PCIe 3
- AData XPG Gammix S50 Lite
- HP EX950
- Mushkin Pilot-E
- Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB, pre-rework (firmware 2B2QEXM7)
- Samsung 970 EVO Plus 2TB, post-rework (firmware 3B2QEXM7 or 4B2QEXM7). In testing this syncs just as quickly as the pre-rework drive.
- SK Hynix P31 Gold
- WD Black SN750 (but not SN750 SE)
- WD Red SN700
2.5" SATA "mainstream" - TLC, DRAM
- Crucial MX500 SATA
- Samsung 860/870 EVO SATA
- WD Blue 3D NAND SATA
Honorable Pi4 mention:
- Samsung T5 USB - works but is slow, avoid if at all possible and go for M.2 NVMe instead, with Rock5 B or CM4. To clarify: If you stay with Pi4, then T5 USB or USB M.2 NVMe adapter should roughly perform the same. Choose either. Maybe consider going for NVMe and a USB adapter so you can upgrade to a Rock5 B in future.
Performance NVMe will of course also work. This is a non-exhaustive list!
- ADATA XPG Gammix S70
- Corsair Force MP600
- Crucial P5 Plus
- Kingston KC2000 / KC3000 / Fury Renegade
- Mushkin Redline Vortex
- Sabrent Rocket 4 Plus
- Samsung 980/990 Pro
- SK Hynix P41 Platinum
- WD Black SN850(X)
- &c. A "performance NVMe" uses TLC, DRAM, and PCIe 4 or 5.
Likewise, data center SSD drives will work well.
- Any baremetal/dedicated server service
- AWS gp3 w/ 10k IOPS provisioned and an m6i/a.xlarge
These models are reportedly too slow to sync mainnet Geth. If you have one of these, try Erigon.
- Kingston NV1 (probably QLC and DRAMless and thus too slow on 2TB, but could be "anything" as Kingston do not guarantee specific components)
- Kingston NV2 (too slow to sync Nethermind in testing; might be able to sync Geth; like NV1 no guaranteed components)
- WD Green SN350
- Anything both QLC and DRAMless will likely not be able to sync at all or not be able to consistently keep up with "chain head"
- Crucial BX500 SATA, HP S650 SATA, probably most SATA budget drives
- Samsung T7 USB, even with current firmware
- Contabo SSD
- Netcup VPS Servers - reportedly able to sync Geth but not Nethermind
"Budget" models that can sync mainnet Geth, if slowly
- Corsair MP400, QLC
- Crucial P3, QLC and DRAMless
- Inland Professional 3D NAND, QLC
- Intel 660p, QLC
- Seagata Barracuda Q5, QLC
- WD Black SN770, DRAMless
- Samsung 870 QVO SATA, QLC
- Contabo NVMe - fast enough but not enough space. 800 GiB is not sufficient.
- Netcup RS Servers. Reportedly fast enough to sync Nethermind or Geth; still no speed demon.