When you need to explore the blockchain’s full history, mostly for research purposes, you need an archive node. The full and archive node difference depends on the specific blockchain. For Bitcoin, full and archive nodes are almost the same, while Ethereum’s archive node is several times larger than a simple full node.
In the case of Solana, however, the difference is drastic. Running an archive node requires truly tremendous amounts of disk space, and this amount increases by several terabytes each month. That’s why our Solana archive node service is a separate option for those who really need it.
Such high requirements are the consequence of Solana’s consensus mechanism, which allows it to be one of the most efficient chains.
What is a Solana archive node?
Let’s start by defining how Solana’s Proof-of-History (PoH) consensus works and how its full nodes operate. Here, we’ll be short: as always, feel free to read our full guide if you want to dive into Solana’s consensus architecture.
Solana records all transactions into blocks and then records block sequences in snapshots, which are then validated to ensure that they’re legit. At every given time, Solana records its state and compares it along nodes, ensuring that every transaction and smart contract execution follows the blockchain’s rules.
Source: Jito
Solana’s blocks are combined into epochs, during which validators check transactions and earn rewards. To dive even further into technical details, one can look at Solana’s transaction processing unit (TPU) scheme below.
Source: Jito
As a result, each Solana full node represents the current blockchain’s state, which is enough for transaction validation and integrity maintenance. As new blocks and epochs go on, previous ones are cleaned up to save space. These states can still be retrieved to some extent using other nodes, but only archive nodes enable full access to them.
Therefore, the Solana archive node contains not just the current state, but all previous states, up to the genesis block. This means extremely large storage requirements, as Solana's speed is tremendous and new blocks are created every second, contributing to the fast ledger growth.
Overview and purpose of Solana archive nodes
Below, one can see the widespread use of Solana validator nodes, each of which is a full node that contributes to transaction validation and maintains chain integrity and security. As one can guess, the network of Solana archive nodes is much, much smaller.
Source: Solana Validators
Solana is famous for its speed, efficiency, and throughput, but it also comes with high computational requirements for its nodes. When talking about archive nodes, they become even higher. Solana generates blocks very quickly, then creates timestamps for validation, and all these processes lead to constant and very fast generation of new data.
As we’ll see, Solana archive nodes require several hundreds of terabytes of disk space to run all of these historical states.
Archive nodes are needed only for very specific tasks. They include:
- deep research
- blockchain indexing
- historic states analytics
- investigations and audit
- critical response, such as blockchain recovery
Therefore, if you're a Solana developer or entrepreneur, chances are high that you need an RPC node to access blockchain functionalities. However, if your request aligns with the list above, then the archive node is your choice.
Solana archive nodes are rare. Contact GetBlock if you need one!
Solana archive node requirements
As you can guess, these requirements are very high.
Solana archive node size and data growth
Among the blockchains, Solana’s archive node is the largest. One can see that it was larger than 100 TB in 2023, while in 2025 its size is close to 400 TB.
Source: Medium (2023)
It’s significantly larger than Filecoin, a blockchain that stores different files onchain, including quite large ones. So, one can imagine the tremendous speed of Solana's block production, if its archive node is much larger even compared to the chain that stores large files.
Average Solana’s block production time is 520 ms, while each epoch lasts only 24 hours. So, new blocks are created every second, and new blockchain states, called snapshots, are made to validate transactions, after which they’re recorded on the blockchain.
Full nodes typically store old states up to the size of 1–4 TB, depending on the node settings, after which they’re cleaned up. Archive nodes, by definition, never clean up the archive states, so they grow by about 80 TB per year.
Regarding other hardware requirements, they are similar or slightly larger than those for full nodes. Let’s dive deeper.
Setting up a Solana archive node
Disclaimer: Due to these reasons, if you’re a blockchain enthusiast or even a medium-sized Web3 enterprise, we strongly discourage you from running a Solana archive node.
You’ll have to pay approximately $40,000 only for acquiring a necessary number of SSD disks to meet the node requirements, while the monthly maintenance, including electricity costs and predicted ledger growth, will cost about $3,000.
It’s unreasonable to make such an investment without a clear understanding of which rewards you’ll have. However, let’s explore how to deploy an archive node to fully understand how it works.
Installation and syncing process
From a purely technical perspective, setting up Solana’s archive node isn’t much different from a similar process for a full node.
The only difference is that one needs to specify that no data should be cleaned up. After that, one has to synchronize with other archive nodes to download all these hundreds of terabytes of archive Solana’s states.
Here is the basic algorithm:
- Acquire necessary hardware, including 400+ TB of disk space
- Download the Agave client from Anza’s official website
- Download Solana’s CLI from Solana’s official website
- Disable node pruning, so it won’t remove any archive data
- Configure node ports and create all required directories
- Wait for the node synchronization with other archive nodes
After that, one needs to maintain the node, ensuring it runs properly and there is enough space for the node to grow.
Benefits of Solana archive nodes
One can compare hardware requirements for the full and archive nodes below. Even the monthly archive node maintenance cost will cost you about the same as the full node installation, due to the intensive ledger growth.
| Requirement | Full node | Archive node |
|---|---|---|
| Storage | 1+ TB SSD | 400+ TB SSD (2025) |
| RAM | 128+ GB | 512+ GB |
| CPU | Multi-core (16+ cores) | Multi-core (32+ cores) |
| Internet | 1+ Gbps | 1+ Gbps |
| Installation cost | $2,000+ | $45,000+ |
| Maintenance cost | $400/month | $3,000/month |
The main difference is the storage: ordinary full nodes may clean up space and rarely require more than 1 TB disk. Archive nodes must keep all states and blocks by definition, so they need at least 400 TB for now (2025), and be ready for 4+ TB growth per month.
Other requirements are similar, but archive nodes need more computational capacities, as they must proceed with much larger amounts of data. So, for most cases, Solana archive nodes aren’t the best investment: they are incredibly expensive and don’t have direct benefits like validator rewards. This explains why there are so few of them.
However, they’re indispensable for some tasks.
Data availability for developers and dApps
Archive nodes ensure data availability for Web3 developers. They’re essential for Web3 researchers, analytics, auditors, and indexer tools. All of them need archive states to compare them and find something they need, be it valuable insights, scientific data, or investigations.
Remember, you can always contact us and ask if you’re unsure whether you need an archive node.
If you need a Solana node of any type, for any purpose, GetBlock is here to help. From shared nodes for small dApps, to dedicated and enterprise solutions for mature projects, we provide optimized node solutions specifically for your purposes. All node costs are highly flexible, so you’ll pay only for the computational resources you need and can optimize your budget for stable growth. Sign up now, select the node you need—and make yourself ready for any challenge!
