I run 2 windows nodes. The larger of the 2 which has 9tb stored went down about 4 days ago with out warning. I’ve been trying to get it restarted, but its being a pain. Windows wont reinstall, life is also not allowing me the time to spend currently to get this node back up and running. My second node with nearly 2tb on it has decided for the second time in as many days to suddenly disconnect as well. So this has got me thinking, with the current forecast for the rise of energy prices here in the UK whether its worth both the effort and the cost of keeping a node running at the current time. If people aren’t aware, here in the UK energy prices are on average going to rise to about £4000 a year and this may be a conservative estimate.
To be fair, I’ve been here since v2 and i was in there for a good while. Yes totally agree with your sentiment regarding what you learn from running nodes. But i’ve never brought hardware to run a node, its always been on pc’s i own. I’ve made some good money i’m not gonna lie but its just a thought process i’m going through at minute. The rise in energy costs might not be an issue as i’m looking at different installers for solar and battery storage at the minute. But i cant get a way from this feeling that it seems to be a lot of hassle for little return. I’ve had periods where they have run for months on end and not even had to do as much as look at the dashboard from one week to the next, but at the minute taking energy out of the equation, it seems like payouts are getting smaller but my work load is increasing. I’m not being critical of storj. Its a good product and i like being part of the “team”. i’m not gonna lie though i’m having these thoughts and just wondered if anyone else was thinking the same.
Ah, well, if I was just for profit here, I’d need with the current payments to be able to store 100TB+ of data. Less than that and I would indeed give up. Not possible yet (unless you’re @Vadim), but plausible in future.
In my opinion, the economics of running a Storj node will change over time. The company is likely to add features and services that will expand the billing mechanics. Right now it is “mostly” storage and egress that customers pay for. As an example, a customer may use Storj for video streaming purposes. They may release a new film that is popular in a certain region of the world. They may want to prioritize the availability of that film in that region of the world for good performance and availability. This would increase the amount of data nodes in that region are receiving, as well as their egress. And the customer would pay a fee for this expanded service offering.
This is not something I’m aware of that we’re working on. My point though is that such value added services will expand Storj’s utility over time. And that the way things are being done today is not how they may be done in a year from now. The product continues to improve, a lot of smart people are working on it every day. There is a lot more good stuff to come. And while I can’t say if node owners will make more or less money, as I’m not part of any of those decisions. I know that without node owners, Storj would not have data storage. And so it is in our interest to continue to improve the situation for all of you. It just takes time, as Storj is still a start-up and in growth mode, and not everything can be done at once. But look at where we’ve been and where we’re at, and you just know that where we are going is going to be great.
I completely agree with @Knowledge. You have to think of Storj for the long-term. Like with any startup it will take time to grow and for people to use the service on large-scale. Once we get that customer usage, just watch as our egress and storage requirements rocket. But, it will take time.
The good thing is Storj keeps their word and pays. I just finished 2 years in June on a cheap Odroid, 8 TB set up. My Odroid is at 5-6 Watts, lesser than a light bulb lol. I’ve tracked all their payments (see chart below) even through the ETH fee cost bonanza.
