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I'm trying to mess around with bitcoind (just the daemon) in a Virtualbox Ubuntu installation. So after installing bitcoind in the virtual installation it downloads the blockchain which is about 5 GBs. Suddenly I started running out of storage on my laptop though.

I checked the size of the Virtual install:

kramer65-Laptop:VirtualBox VMs kramer65$ du -sh *
 22G    Ubuntu server 13.10

I then checked the contents of the virtual image, which seems to be a lot less. In fact this is the total system (screenshot because it's a virtual server in which I cannot select the text):

enter image description here

I tried restarting, reinstalling (both bitcoind as well as a couple new fresh installs of Ubuntu 13.10 as well as 12.04), but to no avail.

Does anybody know why there is such a large difference between the file system it's size and the virtual image it's size?

[EDIT] Here's a screenshot of what's inside the /proc folder: enter image description here

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  • First you must understand the blockchain isn't 5Gb its actually nearly double that or at least its suppose to be. What are the user permissions on the proc folder, because the "no such file or directory" error likely explains some of the problem. Yes, I realize you used sudo. – Ramhound Jan 03 '14 at 12:17
  • @Ramhound - About the blockchain: it didn't finish downloading yet, so I didn't know how large it was in total. Regarding your question on the "No such file or directory" messages: the folder /proc/1094/ doesn't seem to exist at all. I added a screenshot of the contents of /proc/ folder. Does that tell you anything? (the contents of the /proc/ folder is a step outside of my knowledge..) – kramer65 Jan 03 '14 at 12:53
  • You should let the entire blockchain download and verify the problem still exists. I suspect its because bitcoind knows the correct size of the blockchain which interfeers with your reporting tools. – Ramhound Jan 03 '14 at 12:56
  • The problem is that I have no space left on my laptop to continue downloading the blockchain. The clean installation of the Ubuntu Server was 1.6GB large, which grew progressively together with the /home/kramer65/.bitcoin/blocks/ folder. Even if the blockchain is 10GB, how can the virtual drive then already be 22GB? – kramer65 Jan 03 '14 at 13:55
  • Have you tried to use the Virtualbox tools to compress/shrink the vhd? I don't know the exact size of the blockchain but its larger then 11GB. – Ramhound Jan 03 '14 at 13:59
  • According to this link (https://blockchain.info/charts/blocks-size) the current size is almost 13GB. Seeing that I was at more than two thirds of the blocks by count I should have about 8GB of blockchain data by now. That still doesn't explain the 22GB. Lastly, I looked around Virtualbox options, but I can't find anything about compressing. Would you happen to have a tip on where to find that in Virtualbox? – kramer65 Jan 03 '14 at 14:05
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    Might consider using the compact and dd since your using a linux guest. http://superuser.com/questions/529149/how-to-compact-virtualboxs-vdi-file-size – Ramhound Jan 03 '14 at 14:29
  • Awesome!Using the tricks in this answer() totally solved it! The .vdi is now back to a reasonable 6.8GB, Thanks for all the tips! – kramer65 Jan 03 '14 at 15:15
  • Hmmm, it is quite weird though. As soon as I start the the bitcoind again, the .vdi becomes instantly 11GB again, and after getting some more blocks, it is again 20GB. I'm doing the same trick again (from the other answer), and see if I can do it a couple times until I can download all blocks.. – kramer65 Jan 03 '14 at 15:31

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