Is Used Harddisk Good For Farming Chia?

Is Used Harddisk Good For Farming Chia ?
Do you think lifespan is not long ?

It depends…
Keeping a low cost per TB and keeping drives online are both important in Chia. If you can get used enterprise class drives at a significant discount to new, they can definitely be worth it.

No… Consumer Class Used HDD, Like Used WD Blue NOT Enterprise Class, But Price Is Only $5/TB, Location : Secret.

Some Used WD Blue 1TB 3.5" Only $4, But I Don’t Know About Quality, Do you think that’s only trash ?

It’s Good Idea To Buy 2000 Pcs ?

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Power consumption would end up being your major cost. Plus a 1TB drive is not super efficient as far as how many K32s you can fit. Then your enclosure cost or other costs. Costs as much to house a 1TB drive as a 18TB drive.

It could be worth it, but only under certain circumstances.

Yes… But In My Local Area, 18TB Drive Cost Around $45/TB, Most Effective Is 4TB Drive, New Is Cost Around $25/TB

Do you think that still worth it ?, They Store Offer 10 Month Store Warranty

Depends on power cost. Depends on hardware cost to support said drives.

If you have tons of JBOD enclosures holding 45 drives each, and each 45 bay enclosure costs $1000, then a $100 4TB hard drive (x45) means you have a total investment of $5,500 for $30.55 per TB.

Same scenario, 45 bay enclosure, assuming an $800 18TB hard drive (x45) means you have a total investment of $37,000 for $45.68 per TB. AND you are storing MUCH more.

So clearly with that large JBOD the cost of each TB is raised a lot with cheap drives. With more expensive higher capacity is is raised only a little. And we haven’t even factored in power, which we could consider to be 18x more efficient on the larger rig (in actuality this would have to be measured). Over time power is your main cost. I don’t see 1TB drives as a good option. 4TB, better, but the sweet spot may be in the 8TB+ range as far as initial cost and being power efficient (meaning more TB stored for the same wattage used).

No… I use DIY case, with massive USB Hub
Only about $6 Cost for Case and Adapter To PC per HDD
It is still worth it to buy 1000pcs of 3TB Used HDD at $5/TB ?

Let’s assume max USB each PC can support in 127 USB devices. Because that’s fairly well known as the number. You need 8 computers, or Raspberry Pis. Let’s say that’s $50 each x 9 for a total of $450.

Then you need USB hubs. Let’s say 4 x 30 port hubs per PC for $100 each. A total of $400 for each computer. 9 computers means $3,600.

Now you need adapters for each HDD. Each adapter is $6. We need 1,000, so another $6,000.

So before HDDs at all, you have a sub total of $10,500 for the hardware to support 1,000 HDDs.

1,000 HDDs is $15 each, or $15,000. Add to our subtotal and we have a total hardware cost of $25,500.

Then you need to plot to it.

You have 3,000 TB to plot, meaning you can likely fit 27 x K32 plots on each disk, assuming 3TB HDDs.

So you have to plot 27 x 1000 = 2700 plots to plot.

A reasonable plotting setup for this size would be something like 100 plots per day, meaning you reach this number in just under a month.

You can buy 2 x 5950x builds, or 3 x retired Dual E5-26xx builds to make it near 100 plots per day.

That cost would be let’s say $4000 total for either option (the Xeon build would be cheaper).

So for a total of hardware cost of $29,500, including plotters, you can do this.

Then factor in power. Let’s say each disk costs $0.25 to run every 24 hours. You have 1000. It costs $250 each day to run all those disks. I won’t even take into account plotting hardware wattage which will be hundreds of watts for each machine. 105W TDP on each 5950x for example, plus mobo, plus SSDs, etc.

Now factor in network growth. Can you still make money? 2,700 plots isn’t a whole ton. Today it will get you 2 Chia every 9 days. But by the time you plot this it will be roughly 1 month with this approach. The network goes up roughly 50% per week. In 4 weeks, network size will be much larger, and the 2 Chia will happen every 45+ days (potentially).

And it will keep growing.

So I think you need to think about paying off this now nearly $30k USD investment, with roughly $2k USD coming in every 45 days roughly. With a growth stopping at 45 days to win, you still need roughly 675 days to pay off that 30k USD investment. And that’s in my opinion, best case, at current Chia prices.

Oh and I left out power cost which is $250 per day. So after 675 days you have to pay off $168k more of investment.

If you like these numbers, cool. Go for it.

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