The GridION™ single molecule analysis system is scalable; the basic unit is an instrument called a node. Each node is a self-contained electronic reader that operates as a network device. 
Low power and space requirements
A single GridION node has a small footprint, with a 2u height* and fitting standard 19" computing racks. At less than 50W total power consumption, and less than 90BTUs of heat output, each node has the energy footprint of a domestic light bulb, requiring no additional power, temperature control, or structural modifications to a building, for installation.
*A "u" is a standard measurement for the height of rack-mountable instrumentation, and is typically used in computing where individual server blades may be 1u, 2u, etc. A standard computing rack may be 19" or sometimes 23 inches. 1u = 1.75" or 44.45mm.
Node Bandwidth
Each node contains custom, high-performance electronics that allow the high-frequency measurement of ionic current through individual nanopores - many tens of thousands of recordings per second.
Data is transferred from the sensor array chip in the cartridge, via a custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), to the node at hundreds of megabytes per second. In situ, the data is reduced to sensing events of the appropriate type for the application, e.g. basecalls for DNA sequencing or binding counts for protein analysis.