Mine in multiple pools to reduce variance

[-ck]

cgminer supports an arbitrary quota based load balancing system now.

[organofcorti]

As miners miners decide they can't take the variance the variance on the smaller pools

Duplicate duplicate?

Well, well. Could be, could be.  

So now is a good time to remind miners that "load balancing" - mining on multiple pools, even small ones - will significantly reduce your variance.

Are there software tools to facilitate this? To use the smaller pools effectively they need a smaller proportion of the miner's hashrate.

Load balancing is available in CGMiner. I'm not sure about how easy it is, and I don't know if BFGMiner also has this option.

Anyway eventually a switch to Multi-PPS will be needed.

I hasn't thought of it in these terms before, but Multi-PPS would allow miners to use smaller pools since they'd be using a variance free reward method, and so help reduce the centralisation of hashing.

[crazyates]

Load balancing is available in CGMiner. I'm not sure about how easy it is

It's very easy. It's as simple as adjusting your config file to add multiple pools, and then it automatically balances them. Or just listing multiple pools in your command line, if you do it that way.


Here's an example config thread. I've been doing it this way for many many months now.

"pools" : [
   {
      "name" : "pool1",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool1.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool1user",
      "pass" : "pool1pass",
      "pool-priority" : "0"
   },
   {
      "name" : "pool2",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool2.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool2user",
      "pass" : "pool2pass",
      "pool-priority" : "1"
   },
   {
      "name" : "pool3",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool3.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool3user",
      "pass" : "pool3pass",
      "pool-priority" : "2"
   }
],

EDIT: Dur, of course you have to add ""balance" : true," into your config file as well. Otherwise the additional pools just act as backups.

[dmbf]

Hi

I've been experimenting with --balance and --load-balance and posted my observations and some questions in my newbie thread here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=358711.msg3836730#msg3836730

I don't want to crosspost my questions again here but if anyone reading this thread is able to answer some of them, I'd appreciate it.

[giletto]

Load balancing is available in CGMiner. I'm not sure about how easy it is

It's very easy. It's as simple as adjusting your config file to add multiple pools, and then it automatically balances them. Or just listing multiple pools in your command line, if you do it that way.


Here's an example config thread. I've been doing it this way for many many months now.

"pools" : [
   {
      "name" : "pool1",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool1.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool1user",
      "pass" : "pool1pass",
      "pool-priority" : "0"
   },
   {
      "name" : "pool2",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool2.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool2user",
      "pass" : "pool2pass",
      "pool-priority" : "1"
   },
   {
      "name" : "pool3",
      "url" : "stratum+tcp://pool3.url:3333",
      "user" : "pool3user",
      "pass" : "pool3pass",
      "pool-priority" : "2"
   }
],

EDIT: Dur, of course you have to add ""balance" : true," into your config file as well. Otherwise the additional pools just act as backups.

How about this thread in case of balance pools (like you post with 3 pools 33% balance share) and backup? For example, correct me if i am wrong: In your thread all 3 pools shall work in balance with 33.33% each. What will happen, if 1 pool is not reachable? Will the other 2 pools automatic share 50% / 50%, because Pool 1 0% - Pool 2 50% - Pool 3 50%?

If so, that would be great!

But right now the thread look like, the pools are setup like backup pools?

Code:

"pool-priority" : "0", "pool-priority" : "1", "pool-priority" : "2"

Is that correct?