Bitcoin Forum

Should I use multiple pools with my S1 ? I guess what i mean is whats the point of multiple pools? just for redundancy? In case one pool fails? Or can you make more coins if you join multiple pools? Active Active or Active standby?

Yes you should use pools.  There is a better chance of a steady payout.
BTCGuild, Nasty Mining Pool, Eligius are good ones to use.

I hope it helps and Happy Mining.

I'm going to assume that Active Active represents more like a load balancing multipool setting and Active Standby represents a failover strategy.

You absolutely want to at least have a backup pool setup. The larger pools rarely go down, but they do occasionally.

You don't make more revenue using multiple pools per se, but splitting hashing power between multiple pools can potentially reduce variance in your revs.

I use multiple pools for backup. You never know when a pool, even a big one, will go down. Better be safe than sorry.

Pools are beneficial with combined effort. Regardless of your hashrate, it may be best to stick with a pool.

OP, if you want a steady payout use a PPS pool like EclipseMC.  Take a look at how much bad luck the PPLNS pools are having the last 30 days in particular.  ;)

OK. I have to google those two terms. PPLNS and PPS, not sure what they even stand for.
Thanks for the info

On the Ant Miner S1 (unless you modify the firmware), the multiple pool configs are just for backup. It will always use the first pool unless that pools is down, then the second, etc.

You should definitely have at least one backup pool config.

I use BTCGuild.com personally.

EclipseMC no matter how they pay, are the worst and lowest payouts i have ever had. Avoid Eclipse MC, they are owned and operated by BFL, and use customers hardware to there gain.
Worst pool i have ever used. BTCguild is good, Heard good things about Eligius. But none have paid me as much as Slush. But Ive been in the game when slush was the only game.

Happy Mining everyone

Avoid anything related to BFL like the plague.

Avoid Cex/Ghash.io.

Best pools are Eligius, BTCGuild, and Slush. PPS/PPLNS doesn't really matter, pool reliability and track record matter.

You should set a few failover pools, just in case your main pool is down.
You won't get more coins with using multiple pools, but the variance of mining revenue will be smaller.

It would be smarter to have multiple pools to ensure that you earn some BTC. However, having one pool for mining will let you focus on solving blocks. To get a deeper understanding about bitcoin pool mining, check this article: http://bitcoindaily.com/bitcoin-pool-mining-good-or-bad/

Interesting to know where OP eventually pointed his S1 at?

Mine have been with CEX, am very happy with returns and consistency of service.

Yes you should use multiple pools because of backups so if a pool goes down you can still mine. I also used multiple pools when mining.

 Regardless of your hashrate, it may be better to stick with one pool.

If you want to maximize your profit, just choose a pool that have 0% fee. Using fail-over multiple pool in-case your main pool got DDOSed or offline. Ghash is good :)

It maybe true, if your hashrate is very low and it takes a long time to reach the pool's min payment threshold.
Otherwise, I can't think of any reason to stick with just one pool.