Your own Bitcoin node on a mini PC

A Bitcoin node verifies every block and every transaction itself, without you having to trust anyone else. A low-power mini PC is enough. Here is what you need, what it costs in electricity, and what a node does not do.

What you need

Storage: 2 TB SSDOn 22 October 2026 the blockchain was 778 GB in size, having grown by 83 GB in a year. A 1 TB SSD will be full within three years, before you add any other apps.
Memory: 8 GB or moreumbrelOS runs with as little as 4 GB; 8 GB or more is recommended.
Processor: 64-bit, two or more coresMost mini PCs with an Intel or AMD processor will do.
Internet: Upload of at least 400 kbit/sOn a fast connection a node often uploads 200 GB or more a month and downloads around 20 GB. The first time round, you download the entire blockchain.

Three options

Ready-made: Umbrel Home

A small mini PC with umbrelOS preinstalled: a four-core Intel N150, 16 GB of memory and a 1, 2 or 4 TB SSD. Plug in the power and network cables, and do the rest in your browser. For a full node, choose at least 2 TB.

View Umbrel

Your own mini PC with umbrelOS

umbrelOS is free and runs on most 64-bit mini PCs, laptops and desktops with an Intel or AMD processor. That is how our own node server runs: an ordinary mini PC with 32 GB of memory and 2 TB of storage.

See our node server

Raspberry Pi 5

umbrelOS also runs on a Raspberry Pi 5, provided it boots from an NVMe or USB drive rather than a microSD card.

What it costs in electricity

A node runs around the clock. This is what that costs at the average household price of €0.29 per kWh (Eurostat):

Around the clock	Per year	Cost per year
10 W	87.6 kWh	€25.40
20 W	175.2 kWh	€50.81
30 W	262.8 kWh	€76.21

To find out what your mini PC draws, measure it with a plug-in power meter. Manufacturers usually state only the processor's design power (TDP). For the Umbrel Home that is 6 W, but that is not a measurement at the wall socket.

Work it out yourself

Full or pruned

Full node

Keeps the entire blockchain and can pass old blocks on to other nodes. Needed for apps that search the whole blockchain, such as your own Electrum server (Electrs).

Pruned node

Also verifies every block, but keeps only the most recent ones. You decide how much; the minimum is 550 MiB of blocks. According to bitcoin.org, your wallet is just as secure.

Our own Bitcoin node is a pruned node. You can see how much storage it is using right now, live, on our node server.

Frequently asked questions

Does a Bitcoin node make money?

No. A node receives no reward; bitcoin.org describes running a node as volunteer work. You run it for verification and privacy: a wallet connected to your own node does not have to ask someone else's server for your balance and transactions.

Can I mine bitcoin with Umbrel or a mini PC?

Not in any useful way. Bitcoin is mined with specialised chips (ASICs); a processor or GPU does not come anywhere close. A home miner can, however, mine solo through your own node. That is how our solo pools run.

What else can run on the mini PC?

umbrelOS has its own app store. Alongside the Bitcoin node you can run, for example, an ad blocker for your whole network (Pi-hole), secure remote access (Tailscale) or your own photos and files. Factor the storage those apps need into the size of your SSD.