5 ms·

I think another difference that I've heard the Chia folks talk about is the fact that even with a shift to manufacturing (which is real and a potential ecologic

by Glench 5y ago

I think another difference that I've heard the Chia folks talk about is the fact that even with a shift to manufacturing (which is real and a potential ecological problem, but one that already exists to some extent in the 1+ zettabyte storage industry), it's a one-time deal — hard drives can keep farming forever after they're manufactured with minimal electricity consumption. And they can be used for other purposes besides just farming Chia. With bitcoin the cost is terrible because ASIC hardware only works for mining bitcoin and by definition has to waste huge amounts of electricity forever to keep mining.

duskwuff 5y ago
> hard drives can keep farming forever SSDs have limited program/erase lifespan, and the proof-of-space algorithms used by Chia eat into that lifespan pretty fast.
- Glench 5y ago
  To be precise, the process of "plotting" (using disk space for Chia) causes a lot of writes to disks, but those writes are a one-time process. Once a plot is written it can be moved anywhere and farmed forever. The actual proof of space algorithm for farming only takes an initial 5 seeks and then 64 seeks for the full proof so farming is not a big stress on disks long-term.
  - wruza 5y ago
    What numbers are we talking about here? Assuming 1tb ssd with say 1000 cycles of warranty, would it die instantly or would it not even feel it?
    - YarickR2 5y ago
      I stumbled upon an interview with the actual Chia <s>miner</s> farmer, he claims best SSDs will stay healthy for about a year, and having SSD is a must. Plotting should be done on an SSD (preferably as an NVMe), since this process involves creating 300Gb temp file on the same device that will be used to form a plot. Actual interview [0] is in Russian, but I guess you could get a decent Google Translate-processed English translation . [0] https://habr.com/ru/company/ruvds/blog/554046/ https://habr.com/ru/company/ruvds/blog/554046/
      - wruza 5y ago
        This was really precious, spasibo! Especially for warnings on [not] using regular disks. But from what I learned there, Chia is not a consumer’s tech, cause mainnet already requires huge TBW per dollar ratio, which ubiquitous Samsung EVO/Pro and alikes cannot do. It goes miners-are-special-hardware route again, sadly.
      - neurostimulant 5y ago
        I wonder if it's feasible to use a ramdrive for the temp file. Or maybe the miners already run the number and decided it's cheaper to burn a stack of SSD every once in a while instead of investing in nodes with huge ram.
      - reelen 5y ago
        That would only be with enterprise class SSDs. I’ve been plotting on both consumer and enterprise and the former’s lifespan won’t be more than 3-4 months.
- novok 5y ago
  do you need to use ssds with chia?
  - Glench 5y ago
    No, it's just useful to use SSDs for plotting since they're faster. For farming any storage (HDDs, for example) are fine.
    - jfoutz 5y ago
      How about a RAM disk?
      - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
        Sure but you need about 300GB RAM for the temporary files needed while creating plots.
        MR4D 5y ago
        Thinking about it, for someone who is looking to be seriously into chia, that might make sense. The cost of the RAM is only about $1,500. Might be a smart idea. Has anyone tried this? Would be interesting to see the benefits.
        FranchuFranchu 5y ago
        Wouldn't the ram be idling most of the time while farming? Only storage space matters for farming, speed doesn't.
        MR4D 5y ago
        Honestly, this part I don't understand. Somewhere over that couple days I read that you can farm on an HD, but plotting is faster on an SSD, so I'm making a huge presumption that plotting on a ramdisk would be even faster, without the wear on an SSD. I'm still not clear on Chia. Sometimes I think I understand it, and other times I'm not so sure...
gruez 5y ago
>it's a one-time deal — hard drives can keep farming forever after they're manufactured with minimal electricity consumption Let's say your mining operation brings in $1000/day in revenue. If it's mining bitcoin you might be paying $500/day in electricity bills, leaving you with $500 as profit to reinvest in the business (ie. buy more hardware). If it's mining chia you might be paying $50/day in electricity. That's $450 in less resources wasted, sounds good right? Well no, because any savvy businesman is going to reinvest that $450 into buying more mining hardware, so you can make even more money. In the end any resource you save from lower electricity consumption just gets poured into manufacturing more hardware. >And they can be used for other purposes besides just farming Chia This is a mixed bag, because while it's true that the mining hardware can be repurposed, it also means that during boom times, regular consumers have to pay more for their hardware. See for instance, the GPU shortage.
- Glench 5y ago
  It all depends on the economics. It's pretty likely that at some point reinvesting in Chia by buying more drives just doesn't make sense. You can also read more about the power consumption of Chia here: https://chiapower.org/ https://chiapower.org/
  - puranjay 5y ago
    Do you know what’s a good place to start if I want to build a rig for Chia?
    - Glench 5y ago
      You might check out https://chiaforum.com/ https://chiaforum.com/ or there are some Youtube tutorials if you search. You can also use any old extra disk space you have on your current computers.
    - thinkmassive 5y ago
      “We initially recommend that you try plotting with what you have around.” https://www.chia.net/2021/02/22/plotting-basics.html https://www.chia.net/2021/02/22/plotting-basics.html
noch 5y ago
> With bitcoin the cost is terrible because ASIC hardware only works for mining bitcoin and by definition has to waste huge amounts of electricity forever to keep mining. Multipurpose mining hardware would compromise security of the network. An alternative use for the hardware would effectively be a subsidy on mining Bitcoin. This would imply that the costs of securing Bitcoin are not being paid by Bitcoin hodlers, and are not fully internalised by Bitcoin. This is similar to the reason that Proof of Work must not have economic uses external to the network. If such a subsidy were more valuable than rewards intrinsic to the network, any variance in that subsidy would cause variance in the security of the network, with the likely case being reduced security, the network now being dependent on that external use case. E.g. if the alternative use is valuable, it might incentivise me to acquire enough miners such that I control majority hashrate of the network subsidised by the alternative more profitable use of the hardware. Any attack on the network is then subsidised by the external use case for the hardware.

by Glench 5y ago

duskwuff 5y ago

> hard drives can keep farming forever SSDs have limited program/erase lifespan, and the proof-of-space algorithms used by Chia eat into that lifespan pretty fast.

Glench 5y ago
To be precise, the process of "plotting" (using disk space for Chia) causes a lot of writes to disks, but those writes are a one-time process. Once a plot is written it can be moved anywhere and farmed forever. The actual proof of space algorithm for farming only takes an initial 5 seeks and then 64 seeks for the full proof so farming is not a big stress on disks long-term.
- wruza 5y ago
  What numbers are we talking about here? Assuming 1tb ssd with say 1000 cycles of warranty, would it die instantly or would it not even feel it?
  - YarickR2 5y ago
    I stumbled upon an interview with the actual Chia <s>miner</s> farmer, he claims best SSDs will stay healthy for about a year, and having SSD is a must. Plotting should be done on an SSD (preferably as an NVMe), since this process involves creating 300Gb temp file on the same device that will be used to form a plot. Actual interview [0] is in Russian, but I guess you could get a decent Google Translate-processed English translation . [0] https://habr.com/ru/company/ruvds/blog/554046/ https://habr.com/ru/company/ruvds/blog/554046/
    - wruza 5y ago
      This was really precious, spasibo! Especially for warnings on [not] using regular disks. But from what I learned there, Chia is not a consumer’s tech, cause mainnet already requires huge TBW per dollar ratio, which ubiquitous Samsung EVO/Pro and alikes cannot do. It goes miners-are-special-hardware route again, sadly.
    - neurostimulant 5y ago
      I wonder if it's feasible to use a ramdrive for the temp file. Or maybe the miners already run the number and decided it's cheaper to burn a stack of SSD every once in a while instead of investing in nodes with huge ram.
    - reelen 5y ago
      That would only be with enterprise class SSDs. I’ve been plotting on both consumer and enterprise and the former’s lifespan won’t be more than 3-4 months.
novok 5y ago
do you need to use ssds with chia?
- Glench 5y ago
  No, it's just useful to use SSDs for plotting since they're faster. For farming any storage (HDDs, for example) are fine.
  - jfoutz 5y ago
    How about a RAM disk?
    - loloquwowndueo 5y ago
      Sure but you need about 300GB RAM for the temporary files needed while creating plots.
      - MR4D 5y ago
        Thinking about it, for someone who is looking to be seriously into chia, that might make sense. The cost of the RAM is only about $1,500. Might be a smart idea. Has anyone tried this? Would be interesting to see the benefits.
        FranchuFranchu 5y ago
        Wouldn't the ram be idling most of the time while farming? Only storage space matters for farming, speed doesn't.
        MR4D 5y ago
        Honestly, this part I don't understand. Somewhere over that couple days I read that you can farm on an HD, but plotting is faster on an SSD, so I'm making a huge presumption that plotting on a ramdisk would be even faster, without the wear on an SSD. I'm still not clear on Chia. Sometimes I think I understand it, and other times I'm not so sure...

gruez 5y ago

>it's a one-time deal — hard drives can keep farming forever after they're manufactured with minimal electricity consumption Let's say your mining operation brings in $1000/day in revenue. If it's mining bitcoin you might be paying $500/day in electricity bills, leaving you with $500 as profit to reinvest in the business (ie. buy more hardware). If it's mining chia you might be paying $50/day in electricity. That's $450 in less resources wasted, sounds good right? Well no, because any savvy businesman is going to reinvest that $450 into buying more mining hardware, so you can make even more money. In the end any resource you save from lower electricity consumption just gets poured into manufacturing more hardware. >And they can be used for other purposes besides just farming Chia This is a mixed bag, because while it's true that the mining hardware can be repurposed, it also means that during boom times, regular consumers have to pay more for their hardware. See for instance, the GPU shortage.

Glench 5y ago
It all depends on the economics. It's pretty likely that at some point reinvesting in Chia by buying more drives just doesn't make sense. You can also read more about the power consumption of Chia here: https://chiapower.org/ https://chiapower.org/
- puranjay 5y ago
  Do you know what’s a good place to start if I want to build a rig for Chia?
  - Glench 5y ago
    You might check out https://chiaforum.com/ https://chiaforum.com/ or there are some Youtube tutorials if you search. You can also use any old extra disk space you have on your current computers.
  - thinkmassive 5y ago
    “We initially recommend that you try plotting with what you have around.” https://www.chia.net/2021/02/22/plotting-basics.html https://www.chia.net/2021/02/22/plotting-basics.html

noch 5y ago

> With bitcoin the cost is terrible because ASIC hardware only works for mining bitcoin and by definition has to waste huge amounts of electricity forever to keep mining. Multipurpose mining hardware would compromise security of the network. An alternative use for the hardware would effectively be a subsidy on mining Bitcoin. This would imply that the costs of securing Bitcoin are not being paid by Bitcoin hodlers, and are not fully internalised by Bitcoin. This is similar to the reason that Proof of Work must not have economic uses external to the network. If such a subsidy were more valuable than rewards intrinsic to the network, any variance in that subsidy would cause variance in the security of the network, with the likely case being reduced security, the network now being dependent on that external use case. E.g. if the alternative use is valuable, it might incentivise me to acquire enough miners such that I control majority hashrate of the network subsidised by the alternative more profitable use of the hardware. Any attack on the network is then subsidised by the external use case for the hardware.