Archival Storage and Services
Overview
Full nodes on Sui enforce limited data retention for performance and scalability reasons. Once a full node prunes older data, it is no longer available through the standard gRPC or JSON-RPC endpoints.
The Archival Storage and Service solves this by providing long-term, consistent access to the full historical record of the Sui blockchain — including old transactions, checkpoints, and object states from genesis. It is the historical backbone for indexers, analytics platforms, exchanges, and any application that needs to query data older than what a full node retains.
The Archival Service exposes the same LedgerService gRPC interface, so if you are already using the standard gRPC API, switching to the archival endpoint for historical lookups requires no client changes beyond the endpoint URL.
Note: The standard gRPC full node endpoint does not automatically fall back to Archival when data has been pruned. Your application must query the Archival endpoint explicitly for historical data.
Endpoints
Shared Clients
Shared plan clients access the Archival Service via a fixed shared endpoint:
archive.mainnet.sui.rpcpool.com:443Authentication is required via the X-Token header:
X-Token: <your-token>Your token can be found in your client panel.
Dedicated Clients
Dedicated plan clients have a private archival endpoint provisioned exclusively for their use:
Replace XXX with your dedicated endpoint slug shown in the panel.
Authentication is required via the X-Token header:
Both your endpoint and token can be found in your client panel.
Authentication
All archival endpoints require the X-Token header on every request — the same token used for your standard gRPC endpoint.
Example with grpcurl:
What Data is Available
The Archival Service stores and serves the complete history of the Sui mainnet, including:
Transactions — full transaction data from genesis
Checkpoints — complete checkpoint records
Object states — historical object snapshots at past checkpoints
Effects and events — full transaction effects and emitted events
Using the Archival Service
The Archival Service uses the standard Sui gRPC LedgerService interface. You interact with it the same way as a regular gRPC full node — the only difference is the endpoint URL.
List available services
Get a historical transaction
Get a historical checkpoint
Get an object at a historical checkpoint
For dedicated clients, replace
archive.mainnet.sui.rpcpool.comwith your dedicated archival endpointarchive-XXX.sui.rpcpool.com.
Routing Strategy: Full Node vs. Archival
A common production pattern is to query your standard gRPC endpoint first for recent data, and fall back to the Archival endpoint when data is not found (i.e. when the node returns NOT_FOUND).
This keeps latency low for recent data while ensuring full coverage for historical lookups.
Endpoint Summary
Shared
XXX.sui.rpcpool.com:443
archive.mainnet.sui.rpcpool.com:443
Dedicated
XXX.sui.rpcpool.com:443
archive-XXX.sui.rpcpool.com:443
XXXis your unique endpoint slug, visible in the client panel.
Authentication is the same X-Token header for both endpoint types.
Resources
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