What Is Archive Node in Solana?
An archive node is a Solana RPC node configured to retain the full transaction history from genesis. Standard RPC nodes prune old ledger data to save storage, but archive nodes keep all historical blocks, transactions, and account states.
Why archive nodes exist
Standard Solana RPC nodes store only recent epochs of ledger data (typically the last 2–3 days). Queries for older blocks or transactions return errors like “Block not available for slot” or “Transaction history is not available from this node.” Archive nodes solve this by retaining the entire history.
Use cases
- Historical transaction lookups — retrieving old transactions by signature via getTransaction
- Historical block data — fetching old blocks via getBlock
- Account history — reconstructing an account’s state at a past slot
- Analytics and indexing — building dashboards, explorers, and data pipelines over the full ledger
Storage requirements
The Solana ledger grows continuously. An archive node requires multiple terabytes of fast storage (NVMe SSDs) and significant bandwidth. As of 2026-10-20, the full ledger from genesis exceeds 100 TB of raw data.
Most teams that need historical data use archive node providers or specialized indexing services (Warehouse/BigQuery exports, custom data pipelines) rather than running their own archive node.
FAQ
Does every RPC provider offer archive access? No. Archive access is a premium feature due to the storage costs. Check your provider’s documentation for ledger retention limits.
What if I need data older than my node stores? Use an archive node provider, or query historical data from Solana’s BigTable storage (used by the public RPC endpoint for old data).
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