Need help to improve plot speed.

Chia Plotting
1

Need help to improve plot speed.
I have my second hand Dell r720xd server . with 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 v2 @ 2.50GHz. 128GB RAM. But I can only plot 9 k33 within 65 hours.

CPU: 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 v2 @ 2.50GHz. 20 cores 40threads

vendor_id	: GenuineIntel
cpu family	: 6
model		: 62
model name	: Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2670 v2 @ 2.50GHz
stepping	: 4
microcode	: 0x42e
cpu MHz		: 1920.603
cache size	: 25600 KB
physical id	: 0
siblings	: 20
core id		: 0
cpu cores	: 10
apicid		: 0
initial apicid	: 0
fpu		: yes
fpu_exception	: yes
cpuid level	: 13
wp		: yes
flags		: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp
 lm constant_tsc arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx smx est tm2 ssse3 cx16 xtpr pdc
m pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm cpuid_fault pti ssbd ibrs ibpb stibp tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept v
pid fsgsbase smep erms xsaveopt dtherm ida arat pln pts md_clear flush_l1d```

RAM:
```my@Chia:~$ free -h
              total        used        free      shared  buff/cache   available
Mem:          125Gi        28Gi       476Mi        13Mi        97Gi        96Gi
Swap:          31Gi        97Mi        31Gi

with Dell H710 RAID card.

SSD : 6 1TB SSD. SSD1 & SSD2 build RAID0, SSD3 & SSD4 build RAID0, SSD5 & SSD6 build RAID0
HDD: 6 8TB HDD. HDD1 & HDD2 build RAID0, HDD3 & HDD4 build RAID0, HDD5 & HDD6 build RAID0

Plot with chia-plotter-v0.11-x86_64-linux-gnu.zip ( Releases · hpool-dev/chia-plotter · GitHub )

Plot k33, r=4, memory buffer=7400M, temporary directory to ssd, and destination directory to hdd.

HDD write 500MB/s , SSD write 650MB/s(?). No Nvme device.

9 plot cost 65 hours.

Is there anything wrong with my rig ? and how to impove it ?

2

Two questions:

  • Why are you plotting k33?
  • Why are you using the Hpool plotter and not the Chia original version?

9 in 65 hours seem very slow indeed, but bit hard to compare as almost everyone is using k32 plots
Also what ssd’s are you using

1 Like
3

thanks for reply.

It seemed that the new pool protocol need k33 , so i plot k33.
Hpool plotter can easier define farmer public key and pool public key for each plot process. and it do NOT need the GUI program.
I used NetAC SSD with MLC chips, SATA ,i test the write speed by dd and hdparm , about 600MB/s for write and 640MB/s for read.
I will plot a k32 for test .use the origin plot gram with GUI.

4

This is just a silly rumor some people have been spreading.
100% k32 will be supported by new pools and will stay the default for many years, possibly for ever.

Speed wise it’s hard to say.
2*sata ssd in raid should do ok with only running 3-4 plots on them

I dont know the hpool plotter, you are right that the chia gui is no good. Many people are using plotman or plotmanager instead.

The most important thing is to spread out the plots so that they are not all in the same stage at the same time. Phase 1 is the most heavy in both writes and cpu usage.

5

Yeah, I’ll test for k32. But it’s not finish yet, i’ll update the information when plot ok.
I used Swar-Chia-Plot-Manager(GitHub - swar/Swar-Chia-Plot-Manager: This is a Cross-Platform Plot Manager for Chia Plotting that is simple, easy-to-use, and reliable.) to manage all plots.
with only changed some code to fit my plot program(use Hpool chia-plotter).
i spread for 2 plot each pair( 1+1SSD <=> 1+1 HDD)

6

I Plot a k32 , use the GUI program. it cost 48hours(2 days) to finish it .
Is the HDD broken ? seemed a SMR Hard Disk ?

7

hmm that’s bad. Even a hard disk should not be anywhere neat that slow. I am plotting on some old hdd’s myself with a xeon E3-1246 and it finishes in about 14 hours (one plot per hdd).

You might want to have a look at some of the topics here about (dual) Xeon systems and maybe @SlothtechTV videos. Something about using the right cores and memory (NUMA) but I’m not familiar with it myself.

8

thank you for the reply.
the next step, i want to find the way to improve the SMR disk’s write and read speed.

9

Make sure to enable Write-Caching. You can do this under device manager / Disk Drives / right click on your hard drive and select the Policies tab, and Enable Write Caching on the device. This is for Windows systems.

10

Thanks for your tips.
the HDD was behind the dell H710 card, and i use ubuntu , so i was confused where can i find the write caching setting?

11

I just like to add that SMR disk(s) work fine, i have one in my collection (CMR preferred though).

12

Yeah?
i copy a plot file (k33,208G) to the same disk , 102 min copied 35G. so i kill the session. it seemed only 5Mb/s 。