# Hardware requirements If you want to run a validator node, you will first need a machine that is powerful enough to facilitate all of the required computation. We understand that for practical reasons a lot of the validators will choose one of the cloud providers. That said, the best thing from a decentralization standpoint is to run the node on your own machine. A general remark for choosing your hardware setup is that you want the machine to have fast I/O. As such, NVMe SSD disks are recommended, as well as making sure that the network has low latency and is reliable. Below you will find a reasonably powerful setup that should allow you to run your node comfortably, without worrying about the 'hiccups' (which can impede block production). #### Hardware setup for running on your own machine * **CPU:** modern desktop x86\_64 (Intel, AMD) processor with at least 8 cores * **RAM:** 32GB * **Storage:** * **Pruned node** (recommended for validators) 500GB NVMe SSD * **Archive node** (required for RPC nodes): 2TB NVMe SSD * **Network:** 100+Mbps (with low latency) #### Example Cloud setup on AWS: We recommend instances equivalent or higher than **c5d.4xlarge** with **gp3 EBS** set to **16000 IOPS**. For better disk performance setups with **NVMe Local Instances** are recommended over **EBS**. A closing remark would be that while most of the times you could get away with using slightly less powerful machines, it becomes a gamble that validators usually want no part of. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.alephzero.org/aleph-zero/use/validate/hardware-requirements.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.