Running StorJ nodes myself is a great hobby, and I love it. Each time I try to share it with some of my more techsavvy friends, the response is always the same.
“Ottetal, I would love to participate, but I don’t have the skill to set up, and certainly not to maintain a StorJ box”
I’ve not come up with a good answer. A simple one is “sure, don’t run a node then”, but most of my friends actually want to be a part of the Network.
Here comes the idea:
Collaborate with someone, building a hardware box that users can buy
Maybe for StorJ token?
Have the Box come with ~5 preinstalled drives mapped to 5 preinstalled dockernodes (where auth token is pre generated and authenticated).
User adds Power and Network to the box, is prompted to go to a website along the lines of https://finds.synology.com/, where greeted with a welcome screen
User then inputs Wallet information and is guided how to port open (maybe this feature is part of the purchase flow?)
The box now just magically works.
No setting up docker
No mapping usergroups
No persistently mapping drives
By being able purchasing a off the shelf box, StorJ could alleviate some of the common user mistakes, and while a new box is not exactly existing unused hardware, having StorJ choose the components could make for more efficient systems, which could tie into the green IT story.
StorJ already has a collaboration with IX systems - maybe that would be a obvious partner
ROI on such boxes will be like finding new ways to send angry support tickets to Storj. Its been said time and time again to use already available space. If someone does it for fun then its fun to learn to build a computer, buy HDDs, install them and be a SNO.
IMO the whole buy Storjbox comes from the “mining” mindset. You could search the forum for any issues you come across and someone from Storj or we as a community will help you out.
I agree but its same as getting a computer and adding few extra HDDs to it. You are better off suggesting your friends to use a Raspberry Pi or Odroid or Orange Pi and other such devices.
PS: Raspberry Pi has released newer model - version 5
I have one of those, if I recall it is using an Rpi 3+ and a single mechanical drive. I set it up years ago and it just runs and runs, no issues.
I don’t think setup is that difficult. I think what happens is we have a subset of SNO’s that are power users. Asking about RAID configs, advanced dashboard metrics, drive life cycles, docker changes, weird Linux distro support, the speed of X divided by the demand of Y… And then you end up needing a lot more information to manage all of these different aspects.
The true is that “plug and forget” working very bad for the network… In common cases if any issue arise they either just switch the box off or will ask for support. They likely will not try to fix any issue themselves, because they do not know how the node works.
If the user is not able to make even port forwarding and do not want to learn, it will drive a huge pressure on the support, they will likely demand a remote sharing sessions to fix an issue (by the way, it takes too much time, believe me, we tried it!).
I strongly disagree to attract people who do not want to learn something new, or people who unable to fix a trivial issues with their node using the documentation and the forum.
I agree with the answers provided in this thread, and have chanced my meaning.
Indeed users who are not willing to take care of their own nodes, are a bigger burden for the network than the extra capacity they may provide.
