With so many nodes and such a table flat graph of average monthly stored, I wonder why do people start new nodes in 2025/2026?
Why do you start a storage node?
What are your expectations for the next 1-5 years? How long do you plan staying and in what conditions?
What would be the switchoff trigger?
These questions are addressed to new SNO, but veterans can answear too. They start new nodes also, eventhough they know how the things are.
This makes me more curious, how they keep staying optimistic.
For a beginner, I imagine the main reason is switching from chia farming and expecting great rewards, but Iām curious thoughā¦
1 Like
In various places (like subreddits) Iāve seen people find storj/chia/filecoin/sia etc when they asked a LLM something like āhow do I make money with my homelabā? So they may not have any long-term plansā¦ and are just starting a node because a chatbot suggested it.
3 Likes
The Why
Well my guess would be that these people either donāt understand the methods StorJ uses for splitting data to nodes, or that they are trying to get a bigger cut of the data stored?
If nothing changes itās a bad spiral, and most will not gain much if they donāt specifically look into improving performance of their nodes, which is the real trigger to winning more races and thus getting selected more often.
Personally, I havnāt started a new node in about a year - avg usage across all nodes are currently ~75%. If needed Iāll assign more space to each.
The When
Iāve been participating since 2019, and are not planning an exit anytime soon. To me, itās not a money game, itās a learning and hobby activity.
But the hard cut off, would probably be if income dropped below my power cost. In that case, I would mentally become a resource sponsor - and if that becomes the case, Iād probably shift to other projects that triggers me more in terms of giving back to a community.
Iām sponsoring a broad variety of projects for many years, NTP, lightningmaps, compute for science, various mirrors etc.
This makes sense to me as a way of giving back, while Storj represents an interesting concept that Iām curious to see evolve, and at the same time allows me to learn new technologies. 
3 Likes
At current payout rates ($1.50/TB/month): my rule-of-thumb is that a node isnāt paying for itself until it has at least 2TB of used-space. Thatās when I feel itās paying for itās own power+internet+CPU+RAM+wear-and-tear.
So considering the 9-month withholding periodā¦ youāre probably subsidizing a new node for the first year. Iād tell any new SNO that if theyāre not willing to let a new node run for more than a yearā¦ donāt bother.
1 Like
100% agree, if itās based on single drive and not genrally used for other workloads, then itās very close to my own calculations.
I would expect a well driven node to take in that 1,5-2TB the first year (given that itās single on /24 and have good reputation)
1 Like
Given the last yearsā actual performance, that would be unrealistic IMO; however, never say never, as that would well represent the year previous.
Hope springs eternal.
2 cents,
Julio
1 Like
Iām shutting down my nodes and just keeping one. I know this goes against my advice of split your risk, improve your expandability, protect your /24, etc.
Graceful exit still shows 0% complete tho
In fact, Iām considering GEing on the pointless satellites too, to just leave 1
For me, I had a bit of extra hardware, and low operating costs so anything over about $5-7 per month income is break even. So far, after only a few months my nodes (14 total, all in a single /24 with no neighbors) are nearly covering all their direct costs.
I donāt have high expectations since I donāt have any real investment. $15+ a month Iād count as a success, $25+ a raging success. I plan on checking back in after another 6 months and as long as Iām maintaining direct operating costs, Iāll leave the nodes running.
I donāt see this project for me as a financial tool or investment where I have pressure to make returns. Itās a hobby where I can use some old hardware and give it a purpose and maybe cover some operating expenses of other machines I run.
4 Likes
People still think LLM is an all-knowing deity, not agreeable and eloquent noise generator.
Answering your questions:
Nothing changed in the general reason why people started nodes four years ago versus today: they have a home server running with space available, and unlimited internet. Running storj node is a no-brainer: you get money that you otherwise would not with zero upfront investment or ongoing cost.
I started a new node a month ago because storj came in conversation with yet another friend who had a server at home running with space availableā¦
Literally, nothing changed in the incentive structure.
As I said before ā even if storj paid nothing I would still continue running nodes. āBut you are subsidizing commercial company!!ā So what? Itās better to give unused resource to literally anyone than waste it. So even in the case of zero payout there is an emotional one of ādoing the right thingā and wasting less resources.
3 Likes
I run 2 nodes per system per IP, so I started a new node because I had 1 free slot in the last system, and I found a good deal for an 18TB drive.
I needed that drive to move a node, and because Iām too lazy to unplug it, once plugged in, I started a node with 500GB limit just to let the other node fill up and pass the collateral period. So at least for 1 year it will stay at 500GB.
After 5 years, I reached a point were my payout is the same for renting a small apartment in a big city. The apartment would cost thousands of ā¬; my farm only 10. Yeah, I know 
, but I like running new stuff, not sh ebay junk.
1 Like
I just checked, I have a node that is 1year and 20 days old, itās at 1,4TB.
1 Like
Youāre the only reason I believe SNOs can exceed 20TB. Even Th3Van doesnāt seem to have any drive even filling 8TB?
20 seems impossible. I donāt think many even reach 10TB after 3 yearsā¦
I started my two nodes at first to see what kind of money I could make. I was not expecting much and that is correct, it is not much money at all. My servers run non-stop and the extra power draw is negligible, a few CPU cycles.
I use to give my recourses to SETI at Home, and then a few other projects, so this is not something new to me, but this one I can make a tiny bit of money back, I hope.
I will likely stop if I really need the storage space or the server will not be running 24/7, but Iām in it for the long haul, or at least 2 years to give it a fair run period.
1 Like
Per IP the oldest has 15.6TB spread on 2 nodes. But it is like this for more than a year.
I donāt know if it will pass 20TB someday.
WOW! 1.4TB in one year? It seems so off. So we should consider us lucky in EU. The fillment rate is much higher. I will tell you in the spring what is it, when my last node reaches 1 year.
At 1.4TB per year it would never pay the electricity bill at our rates. Where are your nodes located Mike?
1 Like
Iām un the U.S. and in my short time running two nodes, I have 3TB on 1 system and 1.18TB on the second system and I have about 3TB of free space left. The second node it taking a long time to fill up, but it is slowly getting there.
As I understand it, fulfillment is based on your node response to the storj requests. If it is slow, then it is ranked lower than a node that responds quickly. Anyone can have a slow to respond system. The opposite cannot be said that anyone can have a fast responding node only because we have only so much control. For example, if your internet drops, it is out of your control, it does affect you. I get hit what feels like once to 5 times a week where my internet drops for a few seconds, to 30 minutes. In my area this happens mostly in the very early morning hours but if someone wants to recover or store data during that time, well that is a hit against you if your node is offline. It sucks.
I am already putting this into practice. I manage data for 6 hospitals with massive X-ray archives. Currently, I am running a node using my spare drive space, and I use the earned STORJ tokens to pay for the cloud storage costs of backing up that medical data. My goal is to maintain a self-sustaining, āfreeā offsite backup system by contributing my own resources.
2 Likes
22 Months, 5.3TB Stored, Single IP
Regional Victoria, Australia 
Expectations: zero
Why: Spare space, spare kwās.
Do you store these archives on Storj? Or have you considered doing so?
as someone already running a few nodes, I am NOT creating new nodes. The old ones arenāt full and arenāt really filling up at any menacing speed at all.
For a new operatorā¦ I think it would be hard to really āgetā just how long it takes drives to fill up and how long it takes for holdbacks to result in any meaningful payments. At least until you run a few months. So new people with excess storage will always be interested.
I use storj for storage and also run one node on one of my in production Truenas systems. Itās more a curiosity and I have the space that otherwise was doing nothing at the time. I wasnāt looking to make money. It was an app available to me on Truenas and it sounded interesting especially since the machine is on 24/7 anyway. I started with 2Tb, then expanded space to 4 and now 6Tb. I currently have 4+Tb and 100% on metrics so itās doing well I think. I do nothing special, It sits there doing itās thing day in day out which I think is storjās intent anyway. The node has filled at a slow but steady pace as I only started it back at the end of July.
I have no issues at keeping it around. It doesnāt hurt anything, costs nothing except the pool space I gave it, I get a little bit of money for having it around. For someone new I think it can be hard if they are expecting something immediate or some large monetary payout. That aināt going to happen and if always tinkering with the node or bringing it up and down, is your goal you wonāt be happy.
2 Likes