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:443

Authentication 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.com with your dedicated archival endpoint archive-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

Plan
Standard gRPC Endpoint
Archival Endpoint

Shared

XXX.sui.rpcpool.com:443

archive.mainnet.sui.rpcpool.com:443

Dedicated

XXX.sui.rpcpool.com:443

archive-XXX.sui.rpcpool.com:443

XXX is 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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