I am new to this forum, I hope someone here with more experience can help me with my underperformed plotter. I am running GUI and Farming (5 plots so far) and plotting on one computer, at this moment. This are the specs of my Lenovo V530S-07ICB:
With GUI I can plot 1 plot every 6 Hours, or about 6 Plots in Parallel which takes about 30 Hours or so.
I have installed Mad Max plotter and I can plot now 1 plot every 3 Hours, but still, only getting 8 Plots per day, isn’t that way to low for 1.200€ (without Taxes) computer? I only bought it for Chia plotting + farming. Do you guys have any advices?
I have 408 TB to fill on Space Pool, but with this speed it will take 15 months to do that. I am definitely going to buy another plotter because this is just embarrassing. Any help would be appreciated guys to optimize this plotter.
I also have some other questions, maybe someone can also help me because I spent at least 30 hours looking on this forum and I found 0 answers to this specific questions. My plan would be to plot all the plots on better rigs, and then move it to 3x smaller HP Computers (HP Compaq Pro 6300 SFF - Small Form Factor - Intel Core i3-3320 4 GB RAM 250 GB HDD Windows PRO COA - Windows 10 PRO ) each cost about 100€ refurbished. Then I would have on each smaller HP Compaq Pro 6300 SFF (has 4x 3.0 USB connectors) about 17 external HDD’s each with 8 TB for farming. Do I need some harvesters as well? I am currently connected over router that is connected to 4G Network Wireless from some tower near my building. Can that work? I connect them with CAT 5e 0,5m cable, each would have about 3mBit download and 2 mBit upload. This 4G router cost about 20€ per month, but I also have the option of taking the optic fibre cable for about 30€/M, because it is available in my building, should I do that just to be sure that 408 TB or about 3730 plots will be found in the future, and the 30 seconds of checking time for plot will not be a problem? Or it has nothing to do with internet? That are a lot of questions but any help is appreciated guys. Thanks in advance! =)
This is your problem! Firstly it’s limited by SATA to max 550 MB/s write performance and secondy it’s a QLC flash, which has very bad sustained write speeds.
Put a good NVMe SSD with a high sustained write speed (MLC or TLC flash) into your 1200€ pc and you will get to under one hour per single plot with mad max.
Yeah, probably this. OP didn’t actually specify which drive is being used for plotting but a fast NVME would probably help a lot. If you’re using MADMAX then I don’t think it needs to be large, just fast. Larger drives are required for parallel plotting, but with MM you only need 500GB (well, ~330GB according to the program help info). Watch out for drive endurance etc etc.
Technically the ‘other’ less good rigs would be your harvesters. So plot on the ‘good’ pc to make the plots. Then move the drives to less powerful pcs that run as harvesters to farm chia.
AFAIK the actual network bandwidth required isn’t a lot, you’re not transferring TB’s of data. Just syncing with other nodes and checking proofs. So long as the connection is reliable, your farm remains synced, and your response times are reasonable, it shouldn’t be an issue. You would have to check your response times. If you later discover there is a problem with bandwidth or data cap then sure, upgrade to fibre.
Thank you very much for your help! I am not Hardware pro, and its exhausting to google and forum checking before I find the right answer. Can you recommend me some NVMe SSD, and how do I connect it? Not with SATA I guess? Thanks in advance mate!
Thanks a lot mate! Your answers helped me alot, especially with my dilemma about harvesters. Because I would like to sell plotters after I have filled up the HDD’s, so there would not be a need for super-computers just for harvesting/farming. I will definitely than buy a fast 500GB NVME, with a lot TBW’s just like you recommended. Thank you! And about the fibre, I think I’ll just take it to avoid any problems in future.
Hello mate, I appreciate Your offer, but I am going to do the plots by myself. I don’t have that internet to download 408 TB, maybe I can get it over fibre, but It’s still only ca. 50mb/s, and that would take months to download the plots. But thanks anyway
It’s cost-effective to use the HPC plotter for a long time, but it’s not cost-effective to use it for a short time.
one plotter is too slow , more plotter is too expensive
You can find a place with good network to download for a week (several servers can be put in different places separately), or you can temporarily upgrade your bandwidth for a month (some places provide this service)
Are you plotting privately or with company? If with company, where is your company based? I am asking because if I would use your services, it can only be with company that can operate in European Union, and that has valid VAT identification number. And of course after I connect fibre in my office.
Not with SATA no. NMVE drives usually connect using an M.2 port on your Motherboard. Check your motherboard specs and manual on how to connect an NVME drive to it.
As for recommendations, I’m using a Corsair MP600 Pro and getting around 32mins/plot ( Ryzen 3900x, using 12 threads, 32GB ram). The 2TB version I have seems excessive now that I switched to MM.
Generally speaking look for NVME drives with high write speeds and endurance, pretty sure the MP600 Pro is something ridiculous like 6000MB/s sequential write (just a little bit faster than the 550MB/s you’re getting from SATA). But other brands worth considering is Samsung, Sabrent.
You’ll also need to check if your motherboard/cpu is using PCIe 3 or 4. Oh wait the i7-9700 is PCIe 3… you’ll want to look for PCIe 3 NVME drives, this means write speeds of around 3500MB/s would be the top end of what your motherboard/cpu can support.
Have a look at the Seagate Firecuda 510, PCIe 3, 500GB, 3200MB/s write, 2600TBW. Cheap too. Sounds almost too good to be true… (DIsclaimer: I have not personally tested this drive.)
Update: It was too good to be true. The amazon page lied. only has 2500MB/s write, and 650TBW. Looks like the stats are from the 2TB version.
Hmmm looks like a lot of 500GB drives have an endurance of 600TBW. Assuming each plot will cost you 1.6TBW, you can get 375 plots out of a single drive before it supposedly dies. (Endurance ratings could mean nothing, I have yet to see anyone here claim to have killed their drive… yet).
Anyway, for your consideration, the Samsung SDD980, PCIe 3, 3000MB/s write 2600MB/s write, 600TBW 300TBW, affordable.
Update: Wow, the performance advertised on Amazon pages are shockingly misleading. Again, specs advertised were for the 1TB version.
I strongly advise you to double check the manufacturers data sheets to backup any surprisingly good numbers. Have fun shopping. lol.
