Failure rate of mining hardware

[pjviitas]

I am curious about the failure rate of mining hardware mainly because I am starting to think that large numbers of low Gh/s units may be a better idea than small numbers of high Gh/s units.

There is a number of things that make low Gh/s units preferable:
1. Availability - Smaller Gh/s units are easier to produce and thus more available
2. Failure rate - The failure of a low Gh/s unit has less impact on a mining operation
3. Upgradability - Upgrading a mining operation piecemeal is easier

Any comments are appreciated.

Hedghog

[renaxi]

1: I agree, smaller units are better, more people can get into mining without paying 1000's of dollars.
2: Not sure if you are talking about chip failure or device failure. I think it's rare that big units fail completely.
3: If you are running small mining operation it is easier to upgrade, but as soon as we go past the 10th of units, it can be a bit of a pain to change all the boards/units. If you have 10tH/s of block erupter blades vs 10tH/s of knc miners, it would be far faster/easier to upgrade the knc miners