Available Data Stores

Sui Foundation manages several categories of data stores for Sui operators and builders. Each store serves a specific purpose, has its own retention policy, and might require credentials for access.

Choosing a store

Use case	Recommended store	Details
Indexer backfill from genesis	GCS checkpoint buckets	Full retention, use --remote-store-gcs
Indexer steady state	Full node through gRPC (self-hosted or third-party)	Lowest latency, no separate egress charges (full node operating costs still apply)
Full node bootstrap	Formal snapshot free bucket or formal buckets	Fastest path to a running node
Mainnet full node archival fallback	S3 checkpoint bucket	Configure in fullnode.yaml with instance profile credentials
Testnet full node archival fallback	HTTPS checkpoint endpoint	30-day retention is sufficient for fallback
Bigtable-based archival service backfill	GCS checkpoint buckets	Full retention, use --remote-store-gcs
Consistent store restore	Formal snapshot HTTPS + HTTPS checkpoint endpoint	--http for snapshot, --remote-store-url for epoch mapping
Checkpoint remote store population	GCS checkpoint buckets as source	Backfill, then switch to full node gRPC

Checkpoint remote stores

Checkpoint stores contain protobuf-encoded checkpoint blobs (.binpb.zst). They are used by indexers, remote store operators, the archival service, and full node archival fallback.

GCS buckets (full retention, Requester Pays)

These buckets contain the complete checkpoint history from genesis. Use them for production backfill and recovery.

Network	Bucket	CLI flag
Mainnet	gs://mysten-mainnet-checkpoints-use4	--remote-store-gcs mysten-mainnet-checkpoints-use4
Testnet	gs://mysten-testnet-checkpoints-use4	--remote-store-gcs mysten-testnet-checkpoints-use4

Retention: Full history from genesis.

Credentials: GCS Requester Pays. You are charged for egress. Configure Google credentials and a billing project:

$ export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS=/path/to/gcp-credentials.json
$ export GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT=your-billing-project

Workload Identity or another supported Google credential source can replace the credential file. Commands that read from these buckets must include the x-goog-user-project header (for example, --remote-store-header "x-goog-user-project:${GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT}"). See Google Cloud's Use Requester Pays documentation for billing and IAM requirements.

S3 bucket (full retention, Requester Pays)

Network	Endpoint	CLI usage
Mainnet	https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/mysten-mainnet-checkpoints	Use as ingestion-url in fullnode.yaml

Retention: Full history from genesis.

Credentials: AWS Requester Pays. Use this endpoint for Mainnet archival fallback in fullnode.yaml. When running on EC2, the node retrieves credentials from instance metadata (instance profile). Do not put access keys in fullnode.yaml.

The Sui S3 client defaults request_payer to false. You must explicitly enable it in the archival fallback configuration:

remote-store-options:
  - ["aws_request_payer", "true"]

info

This S3 endpoint is specifically for archival fallback configuration in fullnode.yaml. For indexer backfill and remote store population, use the GCS buckets with --remote-store-gcs.

HTTPS endpoints (30-day retention, free)

Network	URL
Mainnet	https://checkpoints.mainnet.sui.io
Testnet	https://checkpoints.testnet.sui.io

Retention: Most recent 30 days only.

Credentials: None required.

caution

These endpoints are public-good services for testing only. Do not use them for production backfill, recovery, or steady-state indexer operation. State sync explicitly rejects checkpoints.mainnet.sui.io as an archive source. For full-retention access, use the GCS or S3 buckets.

The HTTPS endpoints are acceptable for:

• The --remote-store-url parameter during consistent store restore, which reads epochs.json and the target end-of-epoch checkpoint.
• Testnet archival fallback, where 30-day retention is sufficient.

Snapshot stores

Snapshot stores contain point-in-time database state for bootstrapping full nodes and consistent stores. Formal snapshots are minimalistic, database-agnostic, and cryptographically verifiable.

Formal snapshot HTTPS endpoints

Network	URL
Mainnet	https://formal-snapshot.mainnet.sui.io
Testnet	https://formal-snapshot.testnet.sui.io

Retention: Varies by network. Mainnet currently retains approximately the last 60 epochs. Testnet retains approximately the last 90 epochs. Check the live manifest to confirm the current range before planning a restore.

Credentials: None required.

Use these endpoints for:

• Consistent store restore with the --http flag.
• Full node formal snapshot restore with sui-tool download-formal-snapshot.

Formal snapshot buckets (Requester Pays)

Network	S3	GCS
Mainnet	s3://mysten-mainnet-formal/	gs://mysten-mainnet-formal/
Testnet	s3://mysten-testnet-formal/	gs://mysten-testnet-formal/

Retention: Same as the HTTPS endpoints (approximately 60 epochs on Mainnet, 90 on Testnet).

Credentials: AWS or GCS Requester Pays. Provide credentials for the cloud provider you use. For the best download speeds with S3, enable transfer acceleration.

Use these buckets for:

• Consistent store restore.
• Full node formal snapshot restore with sui-tool download-formal-snapshot.

Formal snapshot free bucket (Cloudflare R2)

Mysten Labs hosts free formal snapshots on Cloudflare R2 (currently in North America only). No credentials are required. Access through sui-tool download-formal-snapshot --no-sign-request.