Archival Data Access

All our Solana endpoints support querying the full history of the blockchain, all the way back to the genesis block. This allows you to look up historical transactions, blocks, and account states without needing to manage your own archival infrastructure.

How It Works

When you make a request for historical data (e.g., a transaction from a year ago), our system follows a multi-step process transparently in the background:

1. First, it checks the local ledger on the RPC node you are connected to.

2. If the data is not found locally, it checks our internal cache system.

3. Finally, if the data is still not found, the request is forwarded to our deep archival backend on Google BigTable.

BigTable Archive & Pricing

Our BigTable archive serves as the final step in our automated lookup process for very old data. Please be aware that only requests that are served from this specific BigTable backend incur additional charges.

• Pricing: $25.00 per million queries (or a fraction thereof).

• Minimum Charge: $25.00 per month if the service is used.

• Example Queries: getTransaction, getBlock, getSignaturesForAddress.

Old Faithful (Next-Generation Archive)

Old Faithful is our modern, open-source solution for accessing Solana's historical ledger. It is currently available for use via a separate, dedicated path. In the future, Old Faithful will replace BigTable as the final step in our standard archival request flow. Please refer to the full Old Faithful documentation for details on how to access it today.

Controlling Archival Queries & Costs

We provide you with tools to manage your usage of the paid BigTable archive.

For Dedicated Nodes

If you run a dedicated node, you can contact support to disable all lookups to the BigTable backend. This will cause any requests for data not found on the local ledger or in our cache to fail instead of being forwarded to the paid service.

On a Per-Request Basis

For fine-grained control, you can include the X-bigtable: disabled HTTP header with any RPC request. This tells our system not to forward that specific query to the paid BigTable backend.