[tor-relays] About relay size

[Andy Isaacson]

On Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 09:37:00AM +0200, IPonU wrote:
>I'm already running a small exit node (100Mbps bandwidth) and I'm 
>ready to spend more money on it, so have a question for you guys :

Thanks for running a relay!

>Is it better if I run other small ones (100Mbps too) or only 1 big 
>exit relay (1 Gbps) ? What's best for the network stability/security?

My overall analysis is that one 1Gbps relay is a better contribution to 
the network than two 100 Mbps relays, assuming other variables are held 
constant.  This choice by a single operator isn't a significant impact 
on security or stability, but in general we want

  - more operators
  - more AS diversity as share of exit bandwidth
  - more bandwidth
  - more nodes

in approximately that order of importance.  You're already nailing it on 
the first (thanks again!), I think you're not considering to add another 
AS (your new node would be on the same ISP), so it's mostly just a 
choice between 200 mbps and 1gbps, and a choice between one descriptor 
in the consensus or two descriptors.

Also, if we were very short of nodes, then adding more nodes would be a 
higher priority; but currently we seem to be more short of skilled and 
motivated operators, rather than node-limited.

-andy