👁 What are “partial archive nodes”?

⚫️ The TON Core team has published its May report, featuring a section on “partial archive nodes.” It reminds us how much data the TON blockchain holds, how quickly that volume is growing, and the headaches that come with it. So, let’s break down what all this actually means.

⚫️ Generally, any blockchain keeps records of every transaction ever made. For example, in Bitcoin, you can dig up data from the very first block mined back in 2009. This means every “full node” supporting the Bitcoin network has to store an ever-expanding pile of data—for eternity.

⚫️ But with Bitcoin, this isn’t a huge deal. Its data volume is relatively modest: blocks are created every ten minutes and capped at a single megabyte each. So after 16 years, the whole Bitcoin history is only a few hundred gigabytes—nothing your average hard drive can’t handle. Of course, this also means Bitcoin isn’t exactly ready to be “the blockchain for a billion people”—all those transactions simply wouldn’t fit in those tiny blocks.

⚫️ TON, on the other hand, is all about speed and scale: blocks are created every five seconds and can pack in way more transactions. The result? Data piles up much, much faster. According to TON documentation, “archive nodes” (the ones storing the blockchain’s entire history) now need a whopping 12 terabytes of space. And not just any old hard drive—no, you’ll need pricier, faster SSDs. That’s already a pain in the wallet.

⚫️ And now, TON Core says that in the future, TON blocks will be created even faster. That's great, but that also means the data will balloon even more quickly. This could turn into a real problem for someone running an archive node.

⚫️ Enter the new “partial archive node” option: instead of hoarding the entire blockchain history, you can store just a specific time slice. Archive node operators can now decide how much space they are ready to dedicate, instead of being dragged along by the ever-growing data beast and overpaying for storage.

💡 Sounds like a forced, but sensible compromise: if something gets too big to handle all at once, just chop it up and store it in parts—as long as you can always piece together the full picture when you need it.

@thedailyton