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I want to run a stake pool for fun and learning purposes and not for profit. What are the minimum hardware requirement for that? I have an old laptop with 2Gig RAM and 256Gig storage.

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    If it's purely for fun and learning, I assume it will be on testnet. Your laptop may be able to run 1 testnet node if you use swap space. But you will need 2 nodes. (1 BP and 1 Relay). Have you considered using docker in your main computer? It's how I set up my testnet before moving it to vps.
    – Piggy Bank
    May 1, 2021 at 17:08

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As per this documentation, https://docs.cardano.org/en/latest/getting-started/stake-pool-operators/creating-a-stake-pool.html,

in terms of hardware, you should ensure you have the following:

  • 8 GB of RAM

  • 24 GB of hard disk space

  • a good network connection and about 1 GB of bandwidth per hour

  • a public IP4 address

Note that processor speed is not a significant factor for running a stake pool.

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  • Do I need to be online all the time? Is it possible to connect for a few hours and then shut it down for a day or two?
    – Jelil Akjaly
    May 1, 2021 at 12:04
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    Your pool needs to be online each time it is schedule to produce a block.
    – Marek Mahut - StakeNuts ♦
    May 1, 2021 at 12:39
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    If your pool is not online with enough time for it to catch up to the current block before its' time to produce a block, then it can't!
    – Cobra66 - TLP
    May 1, 2021 at 15:01
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Requirements mentioned here can only reflect the current state and will very likely change in the future.

Since the Alonzo hardfork combinator event it is recommended to have more than the previously recommended 8GB of RAM.

The current documentation recommends

  • 10 GB of RAM
  • 24 GB of hard disk space
  • a good network connection and about 1 GB of bandwidth per hour
  • a public IP4 address

Honestly, to me this sounds more like the absolute minimum requirements.

As of today the db folder alone counts almost 19GB. If you want to keep logs for a while it requires more quickly. Hence my recommendation for >50GB hard disk space. I'd also strongly recommend >12GB of RAM. If you want to run CNCLI for leader logs or such, you'd probably want more like >16GB RAM.

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    This is correct running your node on 8GB will exhaust all memory and crash. You need at least 12GB for each node. The dispspace also needs to be atleast 50GB
    – Skelli
    Nov 5, 2021 at 4:47

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