Bitcoin Forum

I am mining with bfgminer 3.1.4 64-bit and a couple of USB block erupters. Sometimes I would like to connect a USB hard drive so that I can synchronize/backup some files between it and the computer at the same time as I am mining. But I am afraid to connect the hard drive, because I read a comment somewhere that the mining software tries to write to all USB devices or all serial ports or something like that as part of its process of detecting block erupters... Is it safe to connect my external hard drive to my computer and use it at the same time that my computer is mining with the block erupters? Or do I need to temporarily stop mining and close my miner when I want to plug in and use my external hard drive?

Thanks!

P.S. If it makes a difference, the exact command I am using to run the miner is the following:

bfgminer.exe -o stratum+tcp://(MyPool):3335 -u (MyUsername.Worker) -p (MyPassword) -G -S erupter:all --icarus-options 115200:1:1 --icarus-timing 3.0=100

Dont worry, you can just plug in your USB Drive and use it. BFGMiner only uses USB to RS232 Bridge chips (Silicon Labs, FTDI, ProfilicUSA), all other hardware shouldnt  be affected. BFGminer also doesnt support USB hot plugging.

Wrong. It does support hot plugging as of the latest revision.

If I remember correctly, those "USB-to-9pin serial" adapter cables you can find at some electronics stores are also considered USB-to-RS232, right? I think I have one of those cables somewhere, although I haven't ended up needing to use it (yet) to connect anything. But it sounds like if I ever run across an old modem or other piece of equipment that I want to try connecting to my computer using this USB-to-serial adapter cable, I might need to turn off the BFGMiner temporarily (?). Otherwise, it sounds like my other devices should be OK... I assume no external hard drive nor flash drive would be expected to have this RS232 chip in it, right?

As far as I know CGminer supports USB hot plugging. With BFGminer 3.2.1 I had to restart it to get another USB Block Erupter recognised.

Oh well, I have to correct myself, you can add a new Block Erupter to a running BFGminer:
- Plug in the Erupter and wait until windows has configured the driver
- Press "M" to manage devices
- Press "+" to add a new device
- Type "all" to scan for new devices
Downside: it is detected as ICA instead of BES, so it has a higher HW and gives you less accepted shares. Restarting is the better solution
http://s14.directupload.net/images/130927/f5oadiji.png

I run BFL Singles and BEs from CraPE off a USB drive with no issues. But I"M using CGMiner, not BFGRipoff.

well, than you lose about 5 MHash/s accepted shares per stick. CGminer also has a hardware error rate of about 1% like BEs that that are detected as ICA. BFGminer detecting them as BES drops your HW down to around 0.6%.
Î dont care about the fight between Luke-Jr and the CGminer team, because it is childish. For most things it is just a matter of taste if you use cgminer or bfgminer, as both are very good mining tools. But if you want to use USB BEs then it is a nobrainer that your only choice is bfgminer, because otherwise your mining income would be about 2% lower.