ClickHouse/docs/en/operations/requirements.md

# Requirements

## CPU

In case of installation from prebuilt deb-packages use CPU with x86_64 architecture and SSE 4.2 instructions support. To run ClickHouse with processors than does not support SSE 4.2 or has AArch64 or PowerPC64LE architecture, you should build ClickHouse from sources.

ClickHouse implements parallel data processing and uses all the hardware resources available. When choosing a processor, take into account that ClickHouse works more efficient at configurations with a large number of cores but lower clock rate than at configurations with fewer cores and a higher clock rate. For example, 16 cores with 2600 MHz is preferable than 8 cores with 3600 MHz.

Use of **Turbo Boost** and **hyper-threading** technologies is recommended. It significantly improves performance with a typical load.

## RAM

We recommend to use 4GB of RAM as minimum to be able to perform non-trivial queries. The ClickHouse server can run with a much smaller amount of RAM, but it requires memory for queries processing.

The required volume of RAM depends on:

 - The complexity of queries.
 - Amount of the data, that processed in queries.

To calculate the required volume of RAM, you should estimate the size of temporary data for [GROUP BY](../query_language/select.md#select-group-by-clause), [DISTINCT](../query_language/select.md#select-distinct), [JOIN](../query_language/select.md#select-join) and other operations you use.

ClickHouse can use external memory for temporary data. See [GROUP BY in External Memory](../query_language/select.md#select-group-by-in-external-memory) for details.

## Swap File

Disable the swap file for production environments.

## Storage Subsystem

You need to have 2GB of free disk space to install ClickHouse.

The volume of storage required for your data should be calculated separately. Assessment should include:

- Estimation of a data volume.

    You can take the sample of the data and get an average size of a row from it. Then multiply the value with a number of rows you plan to store.

- Data compression coefficient.

    To estimate the data compression coefficient, load some sample of your data into ClickHouse and compare the actual size of the data with the size of the table stored. For example, clickstream data are usually compressed by 6-10 times.

To calculate the final volume of data to be stored, apply the compression coefficient to the estimated data volume. If you plan to store data in several replicas, then multiply estimated volume with the number of replicas.

## Network

If possible, use networks of 10G of higher class.

A bandwidth of the network is critical for processing of distributed queries with a large amount of intermediate data. Also, network speed affects replication processes.

## Software

ClickHouse is developed for Linux family of operating systems. The recommended Linux distribution is Ubuntu. The `tzdata` package should be installed in the system.

ClickHouse also can work in other families of operating systems. See details in [Getting started](../getting_started/index.md) section of the documentation.