The backbone of the ScPrime network is its hosts, or Storage Providers. The whole idea of ScPrime and decentralized cloud storage, is for people with spare hard drive space, to rent out this space to others in exchange for SCP. Becoming a ScPrime Storage Provider is a fun way to earn some SCP while also helping to build the ScPrime network for it’s eventual full product release. This guide will help you get started on your Storage Provider journey!

Please note, this article is a fairly basic guide to setting up a host. Being an ScPrime Storage Provider can be quite an in-depth undertaking. This guide is purely for someone who wants a quick and fast way of setting up a 1TB host (the minimum requirement) to support the ScPrime network and earn a little extra SCP on the side. If you would like to to ‘grow’ your host and increase your storage capacity beyond 1TB, it’s best to visit the ScPrime Discord’s ‘network’ channel for help. There is also plans for more advanced guides in the future.

Here are a few things you will be required to do to get started…

Download and install the ScPrime UI from https://scpri.me/. Learn how to properly install and setup the UI by reading this guide here. Ensure you have at least 999GB free space on your hard drives/external drives, etc. Know your hosting PC’s IP address and try and make sure it’s a static IP. While a dynamic IP address can work, any time you have to reboot the machine, it could change the address, causing issues with your host. You can work around this with a dynamic DNS address. To learn how to get a dynamic DNS address, please join the ScPrime Discord and visit the network channel. You need to make sure you have port forwarding open on port 4282 and 4283. How and where you do this depends on your ISP. For myself, I just had to log into my ISP provided router and open those ports for the IP address of my hosting PC. There are thousands of router models, so you may need to chat with your ISP or manufacturer if you cannot find the forwarding menu. Make sure your hosting PC is one you can leave on 24/7. While you can be offline for small periods of time for updates, being a storage provider requires some commitment because you are storing data that people need access to. Have enough ‘collateral’ to cover the costs to start hosting. A good/safe value for offering 1TB to the network with 30 SCP or so collateral, per TB per month, would be somewhere in the range between 500 and 1000 SCP.

A note on collateral- Collateral is part of the exchange between a storage provider and a storage renter. Because of the decentralized nature of the network there has to be a mechanic in place to keep a ScPrime Storage Provider from just switching off their computer or faking the data. This mechanism is collateral. Collateral is put up to guarantee original data is stored and not tampered with.

Now let’s look at how we setup your host using the ScPrime UI!

If you followed the ‘Getting Started’ guide then your UI should be up and running. You know how to receive funds into your wallet, so make sure you have your collateral ready to go.

You will then want to go to the Host tab and click on the Add a folder button.

You will want to create a folder on the drive you plan to store on. For ease I created a folder called ‘SCP’ then clicked on Select Folder.

The minimum recommended amount of storage you should offer is 999GB. Storing at least this much, as this guide suggests, allows you to earn incentives to host, along with your rent (sign up for incentives here). So slide the bar in the screenshot above to at least 999 GB then click OK.

You will then see your Host Settings appear on the Hosting tab. This is where hosting can get a bit confusing, so we will keep it pretty simple for this first guide. The above is the default settings. These can be left alone or changed as you see fit. It is encouraged to work within ScPrime’s guidelines, which the default settings fit into.

A note on hosting guidelines- The project has created guidelines for storage providers to follow so that new hosts will be able to compete with more established hosts on the network for storage contracts. The goal of the project is to grow at this stage, so it’s important that storage providers work together. These guidelines allows this to happen and those that follow them are rewarded with incentives on top of their rent.

Now let’s take a closer look at Host Settings;

Max Duration- This is fairly straight forward. It’s the maximum amount of time in weeks you want to allow a contract with a renter to last. You can set this to what you like. 13 is the default but it has been recommended that a good ‘average’ setting might be 16 weeks. Speaking further about contracts, on the ScPrime network, these contracts are smart contracts. They are validated on the blockchain, and are the reason two unknown parties can transact with each other, like ScPrime hosts and renters do.

Collateral Per TB/Month- As previously mentioned, this is the amount of collateral you will put up per month, per terabyte in collateral. The higher the collateral, the more appealing your host might be to a renter as you stand to lose more if your host fails to complete the contract. It’s recommended to set your collateral between 1x and 1.25x (ideally 1x) what you are charging for storage. 20 SCP is the default, but minimum pricing has increased the last few months so you’ll want to adjust this accordingly.

Storage Per TB/Month- This is what you are charging per terabyte per month for storage. 30 SCP is currently the minimum amount allowed if you want to qualify for incentives. You are not limited in how much you can charge, but the software scores each storage provider on things like price, and you might find you are not receiving as much data if you set the prices too high.

Download Per TB- This is another ‘fee’ you can charge depending on your ISP. Download as a host is actually your ‘upload’ in terms of your ISP. If a renter downloads some of his data from your host, you will be ‘uploading’ it to him. Many internet plans commonly have upload limits, so if that is the case with your ISP, you may want to play around with this value.

Upload Per TB- Similar to above, but this is really you ‘downloading’ in terms of your ISP. Most internet plans have high or unlimited download options, so this might be one you can charge very little for.

A note on upload/download charges- While in theory, charging 0 SCP for upload and download would make your host more attractive for renters, there may be an issue currently that prevents storage if you do this. It is recommended to set your provider to at least 1 SCP for upload and download charges. Explore https://eters.lv/scphostlist.html to see how varied this pricing can be between Storage Providers. Some charge 1 SCP while others might charge 40 SCP.

Above is my final settings for this guide. I went with 16 week max contracts. I changed my pricing to 30 SCP per TB/Mo and then changed my collateral to 30 SCP (1x pricing). My internet plan has a very high limit on uploads and downloads so I set those both to 1. Once I changed my settings I pressed the Update button. We are almost ready to go online!

To ‘announce’ that our host is ready to accept contracts, we have to access the terminal. Click on the Terminal button as shown above.

Once in the terminal type spc host announce and hit Enter.

You will then see the message above that your host has been configured to accept contracts. Hit OK to close out of the Terminal.

And just like that our host is online! In less then a few minutes we actually already picked up 1 contract. With time, that number should rise as more renters find your host!

Now that you are online, make sure to visit the ScPrime website and sign up for host incentives here. You will need to give your Discord name, URL to your announced host and the SCP wallet you want your incentives paid to.

Useful Links

https://scpri.me/software/- download the ScPrime UI/wallet.

https://discord.gg/W5ePbSd- ScPrime Discord group. Where most of the ScPrime community gathers.

https://troubleshoot.siacentral.com/- Sia Central troubleshooter. Select ScPrime from the Network drop down menu and enter your host IP and port to get the status of your host and helpful trouble shooting for any issues you may be having.

https://eters.lv/scphostlist.html- this site will show all ScPrime hosts. Find your host in the list to see its stats as well as its score.

https://www.ipfingerprints.com/portscan.php- if you are having trouble with getting your host online, it’s a good idea to make sure your 4282 port is open. Enter your host IP address as well as port 4282 in the port fields to check to make sure it’s open.

https://medium.com/@gadaboy11/uptime-robot-guide-for-scprime-storage-providers-890427b83f50- this guide will help you setup a free account on Uptime Robot. It’s a handy tool that will alert you if your host goes down.

https://www.southxchange.com/Market/Book/SCP/BTC- if you need some more SCP for your host, you can buy it on the SCP/BTC pairing on SouthXchange.

As always, feel free to visit the network channel in the ScPrime Discord if you have any questions or require assistance with setting up your host. Someone will be happy to help!