Idea on Plotting and Space Optimization Automation

I have an idea on automating the plotting process with space optimization. However, I by no mean a programmer and wish someone could help deliver and share the code if you find it useful.

  • Powershell script running in Windows 10
  • List all the available HDDs and consider the optimal K32-K35 combination for each of those HDDs
  • Plot K32-K34 according to best combination into that disk until they are all completed. Idea is to set it and forget. Plug 50 drives in and script finds best combo and plot all of them.
  • Allow user to either enable and disable combination of K32-K35 e.g. user can enable only K32-K34 if they are so preferred (although not the most optimal). Alternatively, we can make this part more simple by storing the pre-calculated combination in matrix and select from this matrix.
  • The plotting part is in typical format as per “CLI Command Reference”. I think this is already widespread in community, so we want to keep this part the same and allow simple config
  • There will be “thread + 1” Powershell window open while plotting. One window for central config and status, and the other “thread” windows are for each parallel plotting. Or we can simply have one window and show everything if that is possible.

Ref:
Optimal combination: https://plot-plan.chia.foxypool.io/
CLI Command Reference: CLI Commands Reference · Chia-Network/chia-blockchain Wiki · GitHub

Regarding the optimal packing, it is an interesting idea, and so I decided to take a “wait and see approach” with regard to my particular farming setup until I had enough data points to see what the slack space was like. Across the 20 fully plotted 16TB drives using only k32s I am wasting a hair under 24GB of drive space, with an average of 1.1GB of empty space per drive. I am guessing that on smaller drives, or a farm consisting of drives of disparate size, that this problem is exacerbated.

I like the idea of it, but in my particular situation, I am unsure if it is a problem that needs solving. In my particular circumstances. What are you seeing with regard to your own farming setup in terms of slack space?

@JustinLloyd Space is wasted if you use only K32 in certain HDD size.
I think using the combination of K32-K35 is the way to go.

Manually you can use the link I mentioned to do the parallel plotting, but I try to also automate that

I understand what you’re saying, but I think it really applies to a micro farmer trying to optimize their plots. Once I have plotted all of my drives (69x16TB) I will be wasting, at current projections, less than 81GB of drive space. That’s over 10,000 plots, and with carefull fiddling, I might be able able to squeeze one or two more plots. For my particular scenario, it just isn’t worth it. But I completely understand that for other people, it will be. I cannot wait to see what tool you come up with.

As a footnote, be aware that plots of the same k-value have slightly different sizes. A quick glance at one drive shows that of 147 plots, there is a variance of about 50MB between the smallest k32 and the largest k32.

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For 16TB drive, K32 is optimized for space utilization.

However, other size e.g. 4TB will lose around 2% (81 GB/drive) if use only K32.
Handling the variance in plot size will be quite challenging.
One idea is to plot first and see the final size, then shuffle that plot to the designated drive with best combo.

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