Debate me. Large capacity drives vs. smaller capacity. Best strategy and why

Chia Farming & Harvesting
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Mistaken. False accusation. I know how to use CLI and or SWAR plot manager. I don’t look at my own selfish situation. I look at things from a “new entrants” perspective. CLI is a dumb way of going about things when you created a software/dashboard interface that is user friendly and in theory should do everything the CLI does, making the CLI EOL. I didn’t want to be rude and tell you and others that I knew that already. Out of respect. I’m sure other “newcomers”, when they show up, if they ever show up, might appreciate the information shared in the thread about CLI. But also, people aren’t able to read well, because I stated at the top that I was avoiding CLI all together.

This debate, as it turned out, was against a largely bitter audience who jumped in with both feet, a year+ ago when Chia was well clear of $100, went big on buying hardware, sees the ROI becoming further and further away, and hasn’t entered into Chia when the price has normalized at <$40. In other words, wrong audience for such a thread. Largely because of the age demographic (old) and not being able to look in the mirror and admit mistakes or consider new approaches. Well, I suppose one might call their purchases a mistake if they look at the ROI and ask whether it’s reasonable or not. Or perhaps will justify the ROI by saying they got the hardware at the best possible prices.

The only counter arguments were about power consumption and space in ones home. If 1W matters that much to you then POW isn’t for you. Leave the power in your country for more important things. Space wise? With the ROI and Chia, I’m not sure why you would do it if it meant taking up too much space in your personal space. Maybe it’s because Chia was $100 back then when you started?

To anyone thinking of Chia farming, I will just say, do some hustle and find cheap hardware. If you’re lazy and not very resourceful then I guess you sacrifice ROI.

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Didn’t answer the questions yet again, not surprised, knew you wouldn’t.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

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Kind of personal information. I don’t offer to people who are rude or arrogant. I guess respect is a base level for me in terms of expectations. I find that GIFs or videos as a crutch tells me more about the person I’m engaging with. If you can’t choose your own words to discuss something then I start to draw conclusions. An inability to write it, so let the GIF can speak for me.

So you’ve assumed that I don’t know CLI in a thread here that is about discussing hard drives. You offered up CLI information in a thread where I stated clearly that my goal was to use the Chia GUI. You assumed incorrectly that I didn’t know how to do use CLI. As stated already, since you and others wanted to offer up a CLI course in the thread, I thought it would be rude of me to say that I didn’t ask for that CLI and tell you (and others) it wasn’t what the thread was about.

If you weren’t rude then perhaps I would humor you and answer your question(s). But that isn’t how I work. You want to know the size of my farm and what I pay for drives? Really? It shouldn’t matter to you. I have no credibility. I don’t know CLI apparently. I just learned what HBA stands for yesterday. Right?

@DanRelfe brought some very tangible information to the debate. It was close, but no cigar. Input some prices based on hard work and then it will be useful. The most useful part I found is in the drive wattage comparison. I say that because many here wanted to point out how power hungry the small drives are vs. the hard drives. If you drive is 2W and my drive is 4W, then the DIFFERENCE is 2W. I’m 2W more expensive for example. Power usage, as some justification for spending more on a drive? Really? Is it not splitting a hair of an already split hair?

I stand by my point. Clearly the wrong audience for this discussion. Unless anyone can state they are just starting to buy drives today and building out now. To those people, sometimes sage advice isn’t sage advice. Realize that a lot of tutorials and “how to’s” were done at a time when Chia was $100+ and the mindset might have been slightly more presumptuous. People dropped out of farming Chia because the returns got ugly and people realized they went way to big and expensive on hardware. That’s why netspace drops. People give up. They made dumb decisions but that doesn’t mean you have to.

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That’s what the 33%, 50%, 66% and 75% figures are. They are that percentage of the new price, as was stated originally. You talk about getting drives of the same capacity for half the price - so look at the 50% column. It’s not hard.

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Thank you. You spent the time on creating this so I can appreciate it would be annoying to get criticism after doing that work. I would have to delve into numbers to see how inaccurate the findings are. Maybe I said that wrong. I’m saying that it’s better to base everything on used drives. I make zero claims to be on top of the new hard drive market price. Maybe some people will use that, I wouldn’t. I’m operating under the assumption that people getting into Chia today would most definitely be going the used route. So on that basis, I’m saying that based on the used market in my area, which is probably typical for most people, it’s easy to get double the capacity for the price of one larger drive. Most people ask dumb prices for used drives, especially on eBay. I think eBay sucks frankly speaking for most things in comparison to local used ads. So because I’m using larger capacity used drives as a price comparison, I can’t really relate to the data you have presented. I can say though, I can easily get 10TB for the price of 20TB, and most time people aren’t selling larger capacity drive for cheap, so you could say I can get 10TB for the cost of 25TB or even 30TB. People expect a premium the larger the drive, even in the used market. There really aren’t great deals to be honest.

And as a side note, you have to consider cables and HBAs, which are best from eBay. You say a cable cost divided by the 4 drives, and the HBA divided by 8 drives as 8i is the most common. Tack those numbers onto the price you’re paying per TB. The only place worth buying HBA cables from is China via eBay.

And lastly, although this should be obvious, I’m not suggesting that smaller drives make sense if you plan on filling up server hardware (caddies). If that is your plan, then you are misaligned from my goal which is to spend the bare minimum. If you have a wife who doesn’t appreciate computer hardware then sure you might have issues. To counter that, I say take your 6 month Chia earnings and show her the money. Take her out and get a cheeseburger at McDonald’s and tell her that Chia paid for it. The eye sore is worth it.

I have no problem showing what solutions I’ve come up with for a caseless solution. Still a work in progress. There isn’t a lot of evolution in caseless Chia farming because everyone says to buy server storage equipment instead. I won’t post details and photos here though. Why would I do that?

Edit: I did just think of something rather comical. There is all this hype around 30% more plots with nossd pool. I’m trying to say that you can double your storage for the same price and look at the backlash. It’s comical to me. 30% more profit vs. saving 50%+ on storage. Yet it’s absurd to consider cheaper (lower capacity) hard drives. Does “obtuse” describe this?

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You anybody explain to me how this guy really thinks anybody would pay this much for the hard disk really!!!

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I gave up using words because it is utterly pointless, it seems you can’t draw that conclusion from my reply, so I’ve spelt it out for you.

I have far more useful things to do with my time than to try and convince someone who has tunnel vision, oh and I won’t be making the mistake of offering you advice (in a separate thread) to only have it thrown back in my face here.

I wish you good luck in your life, however I expect you think your so clever you don’t need it.

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Largest capacity possible. Everyone else is wrong.

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You didn’t know that when you Google “MisterSavage” it comes up with master button pusher :joy: :joy: :joy:

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Anyone can easily get 10 TB for the price of 20 TB.
But that is nuts.

For the price of 20 TB, I want 20 TB (not 10 TB).

Why are you pushing outrageous prices for storage space, while simultaneously tutoring us on “returns on investment”?

If a used 10 TB drive costs $100, then why would you pay the cost of a (nonexistent) 25 TB drive?

Since 25 TB and 30 TB drives do not exist, I cannot use them as an example.

So let’s compare a used 10 TB drive (let’s say, for $100) to a used 18 TB drive (let’s say $250).
Why on Earth are you advocating to buy 10 TB drives ($100) for the cost of 18 TB drives ($250)?

For the life of me, what the heck are you espousing?
Who pays the price of a high capacity drive for delivery of a low capacity drive? And the icing on the cake is you are tutoring us on returns on investment.

Even if this had nothing to do with earning anything from the hardware…
Even if this was simply someone that wanted a drive for personal storage…
Why are you telling anyone to shell out for a high capacity drive and take delivery of a low capacity drive?

I have dozens of 10 TB drives. If you want them at the price of 18 TB drives, let me know.

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Yes, they certainly like pushing people’s buttons, every forum has one, and clearly they are this forums.

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Because they haven’t a clue and will counter argue everything any one says, wouldn’t be surprised if they even contradict what they previously wrote. They can’t even answer basic questions about their supposed Chia farm.

Best just ignore the troll.

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Ive come around to agree with MisterSavage except for the very small drives of 1 or 2TB.
So my next xch might be spent on cheap 2nd hand instead

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I’d love to know where you are going to get these cheap drives from, especially if in the UK?

I have recently sold the following drive’s, the prices stated below are what I’m left with after paying fee’s and delivery costs, so they actually sold for more.

10TB WD Elements £128 or £12.80 per TB
6TB SAS £43 or £7.16 per TB
6TB WD Red £85 or £14.16 per TB
8TB WD Elements £91 or £11.42 per TB
8TB WD Elements £102 or £12.75 per TB

If we take the SAS drive out of the equation, then the average price per TB of what I’ve recently sold is £11.42 per TB.

I’ve just purchased five brand new 18TB WD Elements drives, average price paid per TB was £12.28. These five drives will replace a 12TB and four 14TB, hopefully I can achieve a similar sale price as per the previous batch.

We are not all idiots like @MisterSavage makes out paying over the odds for our drives :smile:

There is not much demand for SAS, so there is one way to save money (if not paying for electric), my brother has a load of 4TB SAS drive’s to get rid of, as he’s just bought 18TB drives at the same prices as me, reason being they will pay for themselves quite quickly, as only running one 18TB drive to every 4.5 four TB drives :wink:

Less drives also mean less heat, less noise, and less space required, I make that a win, win & a win :smiley:

PS. I also picked up some cheap second hand 16TB drives recently, not that cheap but £11 per TB, only catch was they have all been run hot at some point (69c), so be careful with what you buy second hand.

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How do you know that?

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Because Hard Disk Sentinel show’s it, its stored in the disk smart info.

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I was not aware of that program.

Too bad it does not log the length of time for the high temperature.

I have fans blowing across my external drives. One of the fans decided to take a break, a few drives got hot, and one of them disconnected. I caught it within a few minutes (I have a script that tells me when a drive disconnects).

I replaced the fan, power cycled the drive, and all is well.
But if I sell that drive, it will show a high temperature. Without knowing that the issue was brief, the buyer might complain.

So your 69° log entry might not be cause for concern. No way to know.
But if the drives have been running for weeks, then it is probably fine – especially since you have several that ran hot, and none are failing.

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I bought five, my brother bought four, he also checked them before paying, but forgot to check the temperatures :frowning:

I’m not aware of any way to know how long they got up to 69c for, but the guy had a 1PB farm in his bedroom, so I expect they only ran at that temperature whilst being plotted to, but that could have been a a couple of days, that’s probably best case scenario. No idea what temperature they ran at long term, I think they were just under a year old when we got them.

When I sell my drives I always show screenshots, that way the buyer knows what they are getting - all mine have fans as well, so most times the maximum is in the 40’s or sometimes the 50’s from plotting.

Most second hand drives sold, or at least the ones I see don’t have that information, some do, but majority don’t, so often the buyer is buying blind. The 69c drives was listed on here as having been run in a well ventilated room, that may well have been the case but clearly at some point they were run hot. As always buyer beware - buy second hand and that’s the risk you take.

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Dr Jones, welcome back :laughing:

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its is devided by 512 not multiplied by 512. that’s why you get 50 at end