the size of bitcoins ledger is ~200 gbytes at the moment. So one wonders how big it would get if bitcoin was used for small payments by many people (let alone so called micropayments). Seems like very few people would be able to run a validating node then?
200GiB? So like <= 8TiB/100y @ 1Mtx/d @ avg tx size ...? No problem. Fiddle with the avg tx size / rate, see what other numbers pop out.
On Amazon, I see a 200 GB micro SD card being sold for $71. A 256 GB micro SD card is sold for $120. You can buy a 2 terabytes HD for $50 or so
There are always sweet spots and tradeoffs... HD 12000/409 = 29.3 10000/304 = 32.8 8000/210 = 38.0 6000/160 = 37.5 4000/100 = 40.0 3000/75 = 40.0 2000/59 = 33.8 1000/43 = 23.2 SSD 4000/1050 = 3.8 2000/380 = 5.2 1000/180 = 5.5 500/85 = 5.8 250/50 = 5.0 USB 1000/431 = 2.3 512/170 = 3.0 256/57 = 4.4 128/23 = 5.5 64/14 = 4.5 SD 512/230 = 2.2 400/185 = 2.1 256/100 = 2.5 128/30 = 4.2 64/16 = 4.0 https://www.techpowerup.com/245534/sd-express-is-a-new-memory-card-standard-... https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/28/17514660/sd-card-128tb-storage https://www.forbes.com/sites/tomcoughlin/2017/12/20/digital-storage-projecti... SD is obviously native form factor than HD and SSD for use in personal carry hot wallet devices like phones. USB is a very useful medium. Does anyone make USB drive to SD slot adapter?
SD cards aren't reliable - HDs are cheaper and better.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive Flash bits are quite good, flash and spindles just have different failure modes and vulnerabilities. Most user's far greater weakness is not their media, but their usage, crypto, and backups.
oh and yes, 'satoshi' himself dismissed the problem saying something like "put a few servers in a (NSA) datacenter" - but even though 'satoshi' said that it remains a bad solution no?
Determining what was said gets harder as time goes by, and some are releasing their own private bits on blogs and sites that never get pulled into larger archives. Here's a couple archives... https://nakamotoinstitute.org/ https://nakamotostudies.org/ "a few servers in a datacenter"... sounds fatally cerntralized. Not everyone's first / last saying, or reported interpretations of same, is right, or unchangeable.