Running a Monero node from a home PC with Broadband unlimited download over TOR. Doable?

Question

I want to run a Monero node from home.

My PC details:

• Processor Intel (R) Pentium (R) CPU N3700 @1.60GHz 1.60GHz

• RAM - 4 GB 64 bit operating system x64 based processor

• Total space 465 GB, Out of this used space is 288GB and Free space is 177GB

Right now I just want to familiarise myself with Monero by setting up the node and sorting out a wallet but in future I may setup a website which accepts Monero payments. I have no interest in using my node for mining. I will only use it for conducting my own Monero transactions.

At the moment, I use my PC mainly for emails, websurfing, watching movies sometimes on youtube, or for using the Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel..etc). Security wise, I use Malwarebytes sometimes. I'm a careful user. I use TOR browser sometimes. As of today, there is free space of 177GB on my PC. I don’t have another PC just a laptop I use when travelling so want to keep it for that.

My questions:*

1. Can I run my node at home whilst using my PC as I do already?

2. Can I set up using TOR? And always use it through TOR?

3. If I cannot use TOR, then after I am running a node, are outsiders able to connect to it? If yes, what is the risk here for my PC? I mean does my IP show or what?

4. Can I prevent others from connecting to my node?

5. What will be the best hardware wallet to use with my node?

   Thank you in advance for any help.

Answer 1

1. Yes. Given your computer spec/storage-space, you will probably want to run it as a pruned node though.
2. Yes. Instructions.
3. Regardless of Tor usage or not, you decide if others can connect to your node. Tor is not a firewall.
4. Yes. You can start the daemon with flags --no-igd --hide-my-port --in-peers 0 (these can also be applied in the GUI via daemon startup flags in the settings).
5. "best" is subjective and not really a suitable question for StackExchange. You can use either a Trezor or Ledger.