[How-to] Upgrade your Dappnode Mini to Stake after the Merge

Do you have a Dappnode Mini with low 8Gb RAM and just 1Tb of space and you want to give it a second chance to stake precious ETH?

You‘re in the right place!

In this tutorial I’ll explain you how to upgrade your Mini Dappnode hardware to be able to run both Execution and Consensus layers without running out of memory and space.

Let’s start:
First of all, remember that your Dappnode Mini has these specifications.

  1. Use this tutorial to update your RAM to 16 RAM [How-To] Upgrade DappNode Mini to 16 Gb RAM
  2. Get a 4TB SSD Drive like this WD Blue 3D NAND SSD 2.5" 4TB SATA3
  3. Replace the old SSD Drive for the new one.

I’ve choosen to write the new SSD drive with a fresh Dappnode ISO install. (You can also try to clone your old 1TB SSD to your new 4TB SSD. Let me know how it works if you try that way!)

  1. Update your NUC BIOS firmware : BIOS Update [JYGLKCPX]
  2. Use the latest Dappnode ISO release and follow the installation guide ISO Installation | DAppNode
  3. Connect your dappnode to an UPnP enabled Router.
    I had problems trying to connect to the internet using the same router where another Dappnode device was already running.
    I plugged the upgraded Mini to another router and it went fine.

That’s it!


screenshot.346

Aaaahh… Im syyyyyncing!

Let me know if it works for you.

UPDATE

After testing different EL CL client combinations I’ve found that Geth + Nimbus is less resource intensive and more stable.
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That being said, I plan to use this device as a backup just in case my other more powerful machine dies or needs to re sync for a while.
Have fun with your little node!

I believe this might work if you want to keep all the data.
Using Macrium Reflect Macrium Software | Reflect Free Edition
To copy old data towards new NVME

Need a external disk reader for SSD / NVME reader for old and new one to be connected onto a PC to do the copy / migrate of data.

1 Like

Thanks, it’s very useful.