Node on a smartphone

Have you guys ever thought of running a node on a smartphone?
Until now I thought the storage capacities might make that not really appealing.
Hoever I have just learned that the sd card format SDUC allows capacities up to 128 Tib and that would make a nice ‘little’ storage node on a smartphone.

What would be required to make something like that reality.?

Hmm nice idea, but I think SD cards are not so good for continuous writing to them. They will die very fast I guess, but I haven‘t yet looked into SDUC so far, so maybe this will change the lifespan of an SD card also?

You could always use a usb c (or micro usb) to usb A adapter to connect an harddrive. I’ve done it and it works. You can also get the adapters with the extra power connector to keep the phone charged while connected. I think its a brilliant use case for an old android phone. It might be worth a look at some point in the future.

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What I really had on my mind was using a smartphone as node without any adapters or anythingl.
Just like it is and have the node with you wherever you go.

Before I had my NAS I used an old android phone as a web server. They can basically do anything you want. But unless you hang a ton of dongles off the thing, you’re stuck with wifi, which isn’t ideal. I would definitely not recommend using an SD card for the constant traffic that Storj generates though.

This won’t work. Mobile providers don’t give you a public IPv4 address and the connection wouldn’t be stable enough for node operation.

Yes, but we are seeing is smartphones with larger space capacities, always on and maybe with ipv6 directly accessible for such kind of node operations.

I know for a fact i’ve got about half a dozen old phones. i`d only need an harddrive dock and an adapter and i’d be away with a few more nodes. I’m unsure if android plays well with hubs though, so connecting multiple harddrives might be an issue. I still think its a good idea complementing Storj’s “use existing hardware” statement.

In my experience usb hubs work just fine, but ymmv. If a phone does work fine with USB hubs, might as well throw in a USB ethernet adapter. But keep in mind, while most phones have switched to USB-c plugs, that doesn’t mean they have bothered going beyond USB2 speeds. Many still don’t even offer USB3.0 (3.1 gen1 / 3.2 gen 1), let alone 3.1 gen 2 (3.2 gen 2). And definitely no 3.2 gen 2x2.

Ps. USB naming is a mess…

That’s all relative. As long as certain buildings can be enough to block good reception and there are still many areas with bad coverage, this isn’t viable.

Maybe some day, but this is more complicated than you might think. The network kind of assumes IPv4 is available atm. Right now satellites don’t even speak IPv6 at all. And many customers likely also don’t.

That isn’t quite true though. Technically they are on but as much as possible is in a deep sleep. With a node the phone would have to be quite awake and constantly process requests so your battery would likely be dead before you take a break at work :grin:

But I like the idea of using old phones as nodes at home if they work with an USB hub. It’s easy to get an arm Linux running on top of android and then anything should be possible.

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The real deal would be to get any suitable device to be able to run as a storage node: From smartphone to smart TV, Xbox and HTPC etc.

Anything based on Unix might be hackable to run a storagenode.
Some people succeeded running a node on their weak routers so a htpc would definitely work fine, as long as it’s at least Unix arm.

Hacks should not be required. It should be really easy: Download from store configure run.

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I think there is some intentionality in not making it too simple to install a node anywhere you want. Nodes need to be reliable and if many unreliable nodes join the network, I’m not so much worried about file durability, but the repair costs likely skyrocket. Truth is that getting enough nodes on board is not exactly something Storj Labs has to worry about. Don’t believe me? Go to the new storj.io and find the info on how to become a node operator. It’s not exactly easy to find. You need to want it and put some effort into it. That filters out the nodes that are almost certainly going to be unreliable and cause more harm than they contribute.

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o2 does provide public IPv4 addresses in Germany:

You don’t really need it though, you could use a vps as a proxy.

But the idea doesn’t really work for other reasons than public ip.

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