Mad max will run on Windows, I never managed to get swar running, mad max was alot simpler.
I have I7 11700 (not K) with 2x 1.6TB Intel P4610 in raid0 as temp (1st and 2nd), 64GB ram (3733MHz) running on ubuntu.
With MadMax plotter one plot takes 1820 seconds (-r 16 -u 512). That is about 47 plots per day.
Hello! Iām wondering how could you managed to make -u 512 (that target was almost one of my first ideas after some plot tests) but couldnāt found a solution to make it. Kind regards
Found an answer in MadMax plotter
Those are good stats. With 11700K, with two consumer-grade 2tb Inland PCIE 3.0 nvme (one for -t and -d and another for -2), and 64GB ram with 3200MHz on ubuntu, it has settled to 2298 seconds (-r 16 -r512). First time I ran this it was around 2100 seconds.
My latest stats are from Mad Max that I finally got running.
Try to make raid0 with btrfs for both temps. I think it will be a little faster.
Chech this topic
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Ok all i, just want to know what server or computer to get to get my plotting time down under 8 hours a plot someone point me in the right direction pleaseā¦
is there an easy way to do raid 0 in ubuntu?
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Yea super easy, mdadm command - basically create ādrivesā by combining multiple devices together in a single command line.
Itās been around forever and works well - How To Create RAID Arrays with mdadm on Ubuntu 16.04 | DigitalOcean
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worked
Thank you.
Thanks for the guide made it way easier.
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BTRFS raid0 is not so transparent as mdadm. Once it created, you still have those two (or more) devices, but each of them acts as raid device same for all. Itās confusing ))
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used mdadm
now my 3900x (raid) and 3950x (none raid) both use ramdisk are plotting with a difference of less than a minute between them
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Asus B460 M-A uses two M2 + 6 sata
which all can be used at the same time No disabling. Also I can use m2 as boot drive. Compatible with 10th gen intel processor But only one x16 slot and two x1 3.gen pcie slot. If you use a HBA card you have to buy a x1 pcie display card https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-GeForce-Profile-Graphic-ZT-71304-20L/dp/B01E9Z2D60
mainboard has 6 usb 3.0 ports. You can add 4 sata port pcie x1 card also that makes 10 sata ports taking 10 internal dirves.
https://www.amazon.com/JESOT-Controller-Express-Expression-Profile/dp/B07VZZ11GB
Hello Rkalla,
I am trying to build my plotters. Any advise based on todayās demand. What would be a decent size equipment for around 3-4K? Where did you buy your setup from?
Appreciate any insight into this.
Jax
Hey Jax - welcome to Chia!
So if I had to do this all over again, I would define my setup by the ultimate budget I would be willing to go in.
My first $8k (which was this build + external 12-bay SAS + 250TB of disks) was a really inefficient deployment of fundsā¦ and once I decided I was going to get serious about Chia I went big with a rack setup and buying old server hardware off eBay which is more money certainly but a much more efficient deployment of funds.
Basically, if you know you might go big (e.g. $50k+) then start with a rack setup and grow slowly.
If you know in advance you will never go beyond $5k or so, then a desktop setup like I have outlined above is perfect the ONLY recommendation I would make is to hunt eBay/Craigslist for used hardware instead of building new like I didā¦ I think youāll shave 30% right off the top even for the high-demand items.
Also the vast majority of your budget is going to go towards drives - those are $$ and not getting cheaper anytime soon.
So to split the problem up into:
- Plotter (the thing that will generate plots)
- Harvester/Storage (usually the same PC, but your concern here is more about effective drive management because you have 10s of harddrives attached)
I would give you the following advice:
- A āghettoā build will be 1/2 the price of a ābeautifulā build - literally throwing usb-connected, external hard drives on a book shelf, with wires running everywhere and eventually plugged into an old Workstation will be half the price of trying to build a setup with a beautiful external drive array and all that jazz. These things are $800-1200 JUST for the cases themselves.
- Plotting exclusively in-memory on a machine that has 512gb (yes GB) of ram is about 10x easier than trying to build out a Desktop with a robust enough multi-SSD configuration so the wear on the drives isnāt burning them out every couple of months OR your I/O going to total shit because you are trying to r/w to the same SSD (during plotting) as you are trying to write final plots to AND read final plots from to move them to the spinning drives for storage and harvesting.
- The whole āCPU PCI lanesā wonāt make any sense to you until you try and scale out a plotter then youāll realize why cheaper builds all prefer Ryzen and why people with more cash are LOVING their Epyc server plotter setups.
- To avoid the entire conversation around SSDs/HyperX cards/RAID setups/PCI bandwidth I would strongly suggest any system with 512GB of ram to plot with using bladebit rather than trying to build out a scalable desktop setup. You typically canāt find this kind of ram in a normal Desktop build even a high end gamer build - you typically need specialized mobo / Xeon / Ryzen / Epyc hardware in the machine for that much capacity so searching for old servers (Iāve had great luck with the PowerEdge 820s) or professional Workstations (think older graphics/CAD desktops) on eBay should get you there easily.
- IMPORTANT If you arenāt in a rush, hunting for cheap āLotsā of drives on eBay, usually 8-12TB right now, can net you some awesome sub-$15/TB pricing on drives. If you are space limited though, then you need to consider if itās better to have 30 8TB drives or 13 18TB drives (for example) - you need to deploy so many drives to really make anything worth while.
- MOST IMPORTANT Figuring out if you are doing this because you love Chia or because you want to tinker with hardware and have a long-term investment that grinds out incomeā¦ because taking $4k and buying XCH right now will be about 1000x easier than a building that nets you 2 XCH/month for $4kā¦ this right here is a hard one to unpack - I personally loved tinkering with the hardware and love the idea of getting a massive setup that sits quietly and does itās think for years (much like a real estate investment). But if I had taken that same cash and just went all in @ $130 when XCH droppedā¦ that might have made a lot more sense financially. So just be honest with yourself here.
There is a lot of nuance to āhow to spend $4kā in this field - namely, what kind of system do you have already? Is there a timeline you had in mind or do you have no problem plotting for months to fill up space?
I can help fine-tune my replies if you want to give me a bit more info (also the other folks on this thread are HUGELY helpful as well).
Talk to you soon!
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How many hddās do you plan to get?
If you will only build a farm of 100TiB, then you dont need much plotting power.
If you plan to build a big farm, you need more plotting power.
Chia is about storage size, not plotting speed.
I guess my question is, do you mean to spend 3-4K just on plotters, or does that budget include hddās?
The question i make myself is, how much TB i can buy per month? If TB per month is lower than Plotting per month, then do not invest in a plotter. For sure, a better plotter reduce the hours per month in ploting, thus, less watts
Hello Riyad,
Again thanks for your detailed answer and different perspective to look at. And your last question about whether to buy coin vs build or farm is very inquisitive! I think they both make sense but the fact that there is some rush to farming your own coin to see what you earn, how much you are growing, what you tweak to earn more and plot more, is really exciting and keeps you always looking for more. I bought a desktop and yes I did buy a new one because I am not a hardware person and I didnāt know where to begin and what tools I will need and what if I destroyed what I paid forā¦ so I went to micro center and bought a desktop for about $3400.0 with AMD Ryzen 5950x and 128 GB RAM and 2 TB 980 pro SSD.
Was able to snatch some drives off Best Buy when they sold the 14TB for 199.00 and now the prices are back up again.
Having said that I do agree and I am sure when I look back I might say I should have bought a bigger hardware for plotting and using bladebit would be amazing. I did look at the servers but again wasnāt sure how I am going to connect all the drives and where to find the racks and how to set them up and all the questions that ran through my mindā¦ so I said let me get my hands dirty first and get some experience and then go from there. I think I am happy with my decision to go with the desktop and I think I am going to expand this more and more but as I gain more experience and the biggest challenge for me is time! My work currently takes about 12-14 hrs a day and leaves me brain dead at the end! Another reason why I want to farm and mine more and get free of this job soon! This is my time doing anything like this.
Having shared my thoughts I do have follow up questions as I was reading few things here and there on the internet where you can also farm Chives and seems your ROI is much more than that Chia. Wanted to hear your thoughts on that and what additional mining farming tips and tricks you can share? You have a really amazing wealth of knowledge that I can gather based from your responses!
In addition, if you have suggestions on mining other coins love to hear them.
Looking forward to hearing more from you.
Jax