Run a Node
Hardware Requirements
What it takes to run one · Estimated read time: 4 minutes
TL;DR
A Raspberry Pi 4 (4 GB RAM, SSD-backed) is the supported floor for a validator. The actual design target is a 4-core consumer PC — any Mac or Windows laptop from the last five years exceeds this easily. No datacenter. No $5K server. No 128 GB of RAM.
Minimums by role
| Role | CPU | RAM | Disk | Net |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Full node | 2 cores | 2 GB | 20 GB SSD | 25 Mbps |
| Service node | 2 cores | 2 GB | 20 GB SSD | 50 Mbps |
| Validator | 4 cores | 4 GB | 40 GB SSD | 50 Mbps |
| Light client | any | 512 MB | < 1 GB | 5 Mbps |
These are floors, not targets. Beefier hardware means faster sync, lower request latency, and more headroom during block-production peaks.
The Pi 4 floor
A Raspberry Pi 4 with 4 GB RAM and a USB SSD keeps up with block production comfortably. SD card is not recommended — random writes are slow enough to miss commit deadlines during peaks. Spend the extra £20 on a USB SSD.
The Pi 4 floor is a load-bearing design decision — not marketing. The whole protocol is bounded so a validator can run on one, including the ~330 KB of Dilithium3 signature data per block. See Consensus & Validators.
Recommended for validators
- CPU — 4 modern cores (any recent Intel, AMD Ryzen, or Apple Silicon chip).
- RAM — 8 GB gives comfortable headroom for the VM + LevelDB caches.
- Disk — NVMe SSD, 100 GB to leave room for growth. Avoid HDD.
- Network — 100 Mbps symmetric, static IP, unmetered.
- OS — Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or macOS 14+. Windows works via WSL2.
Bandwidth budget
Target is ≤ 50 GB/month per validator — about 20 kB/s steady, peaking higher during mempool floods. The bound is deliberate: it has to fit residential broadband and unmetered VPS plans.
If your ISP caps monthly data, a validator is probably the wrong role. Consider a light client instead.
Disk & state
Current steady-state disk is under 20 GB — we haven't been running long enough to hit state bloat. Growth is roughly linear with active accounts and contract storage. We target state pruning by default on full nodes so growth stays bounded.
Archive mode (keeps every historical state root) is opt-in and grows much faster. Only run archive if you're building an indexer.
VPS sizing
A Hetzner CX22 (€4/mo, 2 cores, 4 GB, 40 GB disk, 20 TB traffic) is exactly enough for a validator. That is the spec we run the reference validator cluster on today. For more headroom, a CX32 doubles the resources for double the cost.
For the full VPS walkthrough see VPS One-Liner Install.
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