**📢 Research Reveals Key Insights to Improve #NEAR Chunk Performance for Validator Nodes** ❗️ In a rigorous four-week investigation, a dedicated **NEAR Validator** node operator conducted a series of tests aimed at enhancing chunk performance. The findings shed light on critical factors influencing **NEAR Validators** performance and offer valuable recommendations for prospective node operators ❗️  **💥 Key Findings:** 1. **Hardware Testing:** They tested different server hardware, but changing to more powerful hardware didn't significantly improve performance. 2. **Operating System Comparison:** They compared different operating systems but found that the version of the OS didn't make a big difference. 3. **CPU Comparison:** They noticed slightly better performance with AMD processors compared to Intel processors. 4. **RAID Level Comparison:** They found that using RAID0 (combining two disks) performed better than using a single disk. ❗️ The conclusion is that you don't need extremely powerful hardware to run a **NEAR Validator** node. They recommend using AMD Ryzen 5900 or Epyc processors, 32GB of RAM, and 2x1TB NVME drives as the minimum requirements ❗️ Then, they conducted a second set of tests related to the network and peering: 1. **Node Location:** They tested the location of the validator nodes and found that the node's location (in the US, EU, or Japan) didn't significantly affect performance. 2. **Peering:** They made changes to increase the number of validator nodes in the peer list. This change significantly improved performance by reducing the number of missed chunks. + They made configuration changes to increase the number of peers, and as a result, their validator node missed fewer chunks. + They also noted that during network upgrades, frequent node restarts can affect performance, and having a node with 0% uptime in the peer list can also impact performance. The main conclusion is that changing the peering configuration can have a significant positive impact on performance. **[MORE](https://near.social/mob.near/widget/MainPage.N.Post.Page?accountId=denysk.near&blockHeight=103507578)** **[Telegram](https://t.me/nearprotocoluachannel) | [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nearuaguild) | [Medium](https://medium.com/near-protocol-ua) | [Chat](https://t.me/nearprotocolua/1)**