Can someone help a total noob? Can I make mining profitable in my circumstances?

[wheminghou]

Hopefully I'm posting in the right place, I'm a total noob in bitcoin and bitcoin mining.  If not, punt my thread to wherever it should go 

I quite literally just started reading up on bitcoin Sunday, spent all day yesterday reading and coming the web for a feel of the land, so this will be my second fully day in the venture.  Let me tell you my special circumstances in regards to mining.  I have a small data center with free elec, free to me anyway, pretty ridiculous amounts of overcooling, and at least 120U of empty rack space at the moment.  Along with that, I also have access to a 200x200mb fiber optic connection and it averages 100mb free / available around the clock.  Maybe there is a more profitable venture than bitcoin mining?

Anyway, in my research yesterday, looks to me like in used mining equipment my target is about 20 cents per GH/s and I don't want to put anything in less than 1 TH/s.  I just don't want to mess with small stuff.  I have seen a couple units as low as 15 cents per GH/s but they go fast of course.  Looks more like the average is running between 35 and 50 cents per GH/s used and way more than that new.  I did score a 1.25 TH/s unit yesterday and figure my break even at about 90 days, so that's pretty great.  Again, with my situation, I don't really care how much power they burn, I'm most concerned with acquisition cost and capacity.  Any guidance on the types of units I should be looking for would be greatly appreciated.  My objective right now is to start with one or two units and figure out what pools to join, get everything up and running and use any revenue coming in to expand a unit or two at a time until I fill my rack space and hopefully have between 15-20 TH/s capacity, maybe more?

Can I make any money doing this in today's environment?  I understand I'm not going to get rich, but with bitcoin trading so low right now and people seeming to want to bail out on mining and sell me their equipment cheap, I hope to have a robust mining operation online already when it starts trading higher at some point in the future.  I have a lot more questions, but perhaps best just to start with this.  Am I way off base?  Out of my mind insane?

[philipma1957]

 you can make money if the power price is correct.    free = correct


what was you price for the unit you purchased?

s-3's only do 500gb but they  can be found for 100 usd each  so that is 200 a th.  a lowcost server psu runs 2 of them  so under 280 a th

[mrhelpful]

I would say its better to buy bitcoin when its dirt cheap like this when its on a downtrend.

When you mine, youre assuming you get most of the miners paying electricity, which is the main concern. Since you took away this element, its not a matter of how many blocks of work you can get, hence your performance.

You mentioned s-3`s, but if you do a bit more diggings you can actually get $200 or less for a spoondoolies and they perform 1 TH/s per unit compared to the s-3`s.

[wheminghou]

Wow, thanks for the quick replies guys!  I picked up an AMT1200 for $230 to the door.  Seemed to be a descent deal from a reputable seller.  Now you guys are going to proceed to tell me how bad I got hosed 

I have seen a lot of these units out there that do not come with PSU, so I have to calculate that into it and it's kind of a pain.  I can be lazy at times and if I had my choice, I'd love to just slap rack mount units with integrated PSU at 2-4 TH/s each into my racks until I filled them.  Yes, I understand that's going to cost more than piecing stuff together and the almighty $$ will probably have me wiring up all kinds of crazy stuff up because I am cheaper than I am lazy.  I think it all comes down to a game of tracking down the deals on equipment.  I need to comb the forums and just hit the pavement and see if I can throw some offers around and see if any of them stick.

[philipma1957]

Wow, thanks for the quick replies guys!  I picked up an AMT1200 for $230 to the door.  Seemed to be a descent deal from a reputable seller.  Now you guys are going to proceed to tell me how bad I got hosed  

I have seen a lot of these units out there that do not come with PSU, so I have to calculate that into it and it's kind of a pain.  I can be lazy at times and if I had my choice, I'd love to just slap rack mount units with integrated PSU at 2-4 TH/s each into my racks until I filled them.  Yes, I understand that's going to cost more than piecing stuff together and the almighty $$ will probably have me wiring up all kinds of crazy stuff up because I am cheaper than I am lazy.  I think it all comes down to a game of tracking down the deals on equipment.  I need to comb the forums and just hit the pavement and see if I can throw some offers around and see if any of them stick.

well free power is a good thing.

if you can get under 280usd a th with a power supply included you did well.
I am not an AMT owner so I do not know much.

look at this mining calculator.

 I did 3% growth

2% pool fee

0.01 cents for power

800 watts a th or .8 watts a gh

300 usd a th

and 230 for coin price

as long as you can match your numbers above you will do okay.

the numbers above are a bit worse then you gave me.  I see you breaking even in 4 to 5 months. with the bad numbers.  Of course guessing the future is very hard.




full size link

http://imageshack.com/a/img633/284/gJBnVY.png

[jonnybravo0311]

Hopefully I'm posting in the right place, I'm a total noob in bitcoin and bitcoin mining.  If not, punt my thread to wherever it should go 

I quite literally just started reading up on bitcoin Sunday, spent all day yesterday reading and coming the web for a feel of the land, so this will be my second fully day in the venture.  Let me tell you my special circumstances in regards to mining.  I have a small data center with free elec, free to me anyway, pretty ridiculous amounts of overcooling, and at least 120U of empty rack space at the moment.  Along with that, I also have access to a 200x200mb fiber optic connection and it averages 100mb free / available around the clock.  Maybe there is a more profitable venture than bitcoin mining?

Anyway, in my research yesterday, looks to me like in used mining equipment my target is about 20 cents per GH/s and I don't want to put anything in less than 1 TH/s.  I just don't want to mess with small stuff.  I have seen a couple units as low as 15 cents per GH/s but they go fast of course.  Looks more like the average is running between 35 and 50 cents per GH/s used and way more than that new.  I did score a 1.25 TH/s unit yesterday and figure my break even at about 90 days, so that's pretty great.  Again, with my situation, I don't really care how much power they burn, I'm most concerned with acquisition cost and capacity.  Any guidance on the types of units I should be looking for would be greatly appreciated.  My objective right now is to start with one or two units and figure out what pools to join, get everything up and running and use any revenue coming in to expand a unit or two at a time until I fill my rack space and hopefully have between 15-20 TH/s capacity, maybe more?

Can I make any money doing this in today's environment?  I understand I'm not going to get rich, but with bitcoin trading so low right now and people seeming to want to bail out on mining and sell me their equipment cheap, I hope to have a robust mining operation online already when it starts trading higher at some point in the future.  I have a lot more questions, but perhaps best just to start with this.  Am I way off base?  Out of my mind insane?

You say you've got free power... how much free power do you have?

With 120U of rack space available, you can get considerably more than 15-20TH/s if you've got the power to drive it all.  See if you can get your hands on some of the datacenter-centric gear... like the SP10/SP3x series from Spondoolies or the older S2 or newer S4 from Bitmain.

What's your limit on acquisition cost?  You mention $0.20 per GH... which I think you'll have a hard time getting, but you might get lucky... Is there an upper limit?  For example, if you could get a 5.5TH/s machine at $1100 (good luck with that by the way) is $1100 something you'd have access to?

[notlist3d]

If you have free power in a data center... you have a lot of options.    I think looking at used gear if it's truly "free" is best bet of getting some deals.

A lot are unloading 1T dragons.  You could get them for 1 BTC if you watch.    Or better yet is S3's they are also built like tanks.  Just have to get a good price.   Those would be the two I would go for if I had free electricity.

[wheminghou]

Pretty much unlimited on the power, as far as the scale of things I'm looking at.  The main electrical service into the facility is 600v 3 phase and off of that, I have 480 to the small building I am in.  I don't care about noise at all, heat much or power draw to a large extent.  I don't really have a budget, if it gets moving I can bring in one or two people and have some pretty descent capital to work with.  The only person I'm in it with right now, I've worked with for many years as his chief network engineer / officer / whatever you want to call it.  I probably spend $2,500-$3,000 / week on average just in equipment to maintain the existing network (it's big, covers over 8,000 sq mi).  So, I guess in short, no, $1,100 for a 5 TH/s machine (at 20 cents / GH) would be no big deal at all.

The ONLY reason I would not pull the trigger on that this very moment is that I have yet to mine at all!  I am a bit cautious and thorough, I would not have gotten where I am if I were not.  I'd like to get my first machine in the rack and generating revenue, then start adding 1-2 more units a week until I get enough experience under my belt to be able to optimize my operation to a reasonable level.  I already spoke with my assistant today and explained to him how we are going to map every piece of equipment in the rack, it's power load, what circuit it is on, what the capacity of that circuit is and the total capacity on the panel...  The room is already on lock down and I explained to him in no uncertain terms that once we get this thing going, NO ONE is going to plug so much as a phone charger in that room anywhere without prior, written authorization!  Only he and I even have keys for access but last thing I need is someone wondering in there and plugging in a drill and blowing out a rack and starting to lose me money!  I think uptime is pretty important in this racket?  Am I going too far?

[jonnybravo0311]

No, you're not going too far at all .  I still shiver at the "free electricity" part... somebody's got to pay the bill for it, and if you're suddenly increasing the demand by 100kW it'll be noticed.  Unless of course by "free" you simply meant, "power costs are pretty much negligible at $0.01 or less per kWh."

While the S3s are good little miners, I wouldn't be considering them for the space you've got.  I think you'll be far better served by the rack mountable units (S2, S4, S4+, SP10, SP30, SP31, SP35).  I'm assuming here that since you've got the 120U of space, you've already got the cabinets, switches, PDUs, cooling, etc and would just need the mining hardware.  That puts you in a great position (and to be honest makes me a bit envious ).

Your other consideration would be where you'd point all the gear.  Pools like nicehash, westhash, f2pool, etc are all PPS with 3-4% fees.  The upside of mining on this type of pool is you know what you're getting for returns.  For example, nicehash charges 3%, so plug your hash rate into any online calculator (like this one) and take 97% of what it tells you you'll make.  Other pools, like kano.is, BTCGuild, p2pool, AntPool use PPLNS to pay you.  They have a ramp up/down period but things even out.  These pools are susceptible to luck swings.  Find a few quick blocks, make a few extra BTC.  Take a long time to find a block?  Make a few less BTC.  For example, AntPool's all time luck is 101%.

Another option is to rent out your gear.  Services like Mining Rig Rentals (that's a referral link, by the way... you don't have to use it), Nice Hash, etc allow you to offer your mining equipment out to others.  As you can tell from the fact that I put in a referral link, I use MRR.  I also use NH/WH but don't have referrals setup with them.  The idea with these services is that you point your miners to them, and setup a price you'd be willing to rent your gear.  This way your gear hashes at a pool for you until somebody rents it, then you get paid for the rental.

[wheminghou]

Cool, thanks for the ideas.  Which pools to use is a huge concern.  Seems to be so many and so many different ways to pay out...  I have a LOT of homework to do there.  If I get to a certain size, I know it is much higher risk, but is there opportunity to mine directly from bitcoin?  I guess nothing but time and a lot of research and a little trial and error will answer all my questions about how to use all this power I intend to amass?

[wheminghou]

Well, what do I know?  I just scored FOUR Antminer S3 units from a reputable seller for $340 to the door.  Now the search is on for a PSU.  In my noob mind, I am thinking I would like to pick up two power supplies that would be able to power my 4 units to normally operate, then down the road, pick up two more PSUs and overclock the units to 500 GH/s?  Am I still heading the right direction or have I gone totally off the rails.  Gee, my little data center is looking to power up at nearly 3TH/s by the end of next week!  I'm giddy!   

I am looking at some PSUs and even though they may be rated 750-800A, their 12v output is not.  The S3 is 340W so I'm assuming I need 700W on the 12v output of the PSU to comfortably run two of them?  Then is it safe to assume that one of those PSUs would run a single S3 for overclocking or would a strategy of finding a PSU, say 576W 12v output and just get one for each from the jump, which will in the long run be cheaper?  I hope my questions are making sense.  It's getting late and I have to get out of bed in 5hr and go to the gym 

[jonnybravo0311]

Well, what do I know?  I just scored FOUR Antminer S3 units from a reputable seller for $340 to the door.  Now the search is on for a PSU.  In my noob mind, I am thinking I would like to pick up two power supplies that would be able to power my 4 units to normally operate, then down the road, pick up two more PSUs and overclock the units to 500 GH/s?  Am I still heading the right direction or have I gone totally off the rails.  Gee, my little data center is looking to power up at nearly 3TH/s by the end of next week!  I'm giddy!   

I am looking at some PSUs and even though they may be rated 750-800A, their 12v output is not.  The S3 is 340W so I'm assuming I need 700W on the 12v output of the PSU to comfortably run two of them?  Then is it safe to assume that one of those PSUs would run a single S3 for overclocking or would a strategy of finding a PSU, say 576W 12v output and just get one for each from the jump, which will in the long run be cheaper?  I hope my questions are making sense.  It's getting late and I have to get out of bed in 5hr and go to the gym 

You might want to take a look at some of the server PSUs with breakout boards... Some for sale here: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1037372.0

However, if you are going to go the ATX PSU route, I highly recommend the EVGA 1300 G2 PSU.  Each will easily drive 3 S3s (I've got 3 of them driving 8 S3s... was 9, but one died and went to BTC heaven).

Here's a guy selling some: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1048834.0

[MCHouston]

If power or heat is no concern, you could very cheaply max your U space with miners like the Cointerra's as very few people can run them and make money.  Since you have free power I would say start with these as they will probably take the smallest amount of capitol and also they are rackmount.

[wheminghou]

Ok, perhaps a little Antminer S3 101 lesson is in order.  From what I read, you need to have all four PCI-e connectors hooked up to be able to overclock it, is that not correct?

The specs say power consumption is 340W, so I'm guessing that's for running at the normal 441 GH/s and if I want to push it to 500 GH, I'll need a little more, like 400W?

I'm looking at this one:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148046  I can get $40 Amazon Prime.  It has four PCI-e connectors and 588W on two 12v rails, 276W on one rail and 312 on the other.  I could easily get four of those for the cost of a single EVGA 1300 G2 and power all four sufficient to run at 500 GH?  No?

[jonnybravo0311]

Ok, perhaps a little Antminer S3 101 lesson is in order.  From what I read, you need to have all four PCI-e connectors hooked up to be able to overclock it, is that not correct?

The specs say power consumption is 340W, so I'm guessing that's for running at the normal 441 GH/s and if I want to push it to 500 GH, I'll need a little more, like 400W?

I'm looking at this one:  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817148046  I can get $40 Amazon Prime.  It has four PCI-e connectors and 588W on two 12v rails, 276W on one rail and 312 on the other.  I could easily get four of those for the cost of a single EVGA 1300 G2 and power all four sufficient to run at 500 GH?  No?

I'm not a fan of using cheap PSUs and I know nothing of the Apevia brand.  Reading the specs, it's not even bronze rated efficiency, so you'll burn a bit more power at the wall to get the output you need.  However, since your power is free, that really shouldn't be a concern.  Each of the +12V rails has enough juice to drive the S3 - assuming you've got the PCI-e connectors on both rails.  I can't tell that from the spec description.  If the PCI-e are on a single rail, this PSU won't cut it as the max you'll get from one +12V rail is 312W.

As for over-clocking, the S3s are flaky.  Some will push to 504GH/s without even blinking an eye.  Others won't even make the rated 441GH/s.  As I wrote earlier, I've had 9 S3s, 8 of which are still hashing.  Two of them couldn't be clocked any higher than 400GH/s without getting "x" or "-" on some of the ASICs.  One of them has been hashing at 504GH/s without fail.  Another couple hash at 478GH/s.  The remainder hash at 441GH/s.  I've tried every different frequency setting to get the miners stable where they are.  I've tried having all 4 PCI-e connectors plugged in and also only 2.  Never noticed any difference in the performance of the miner.

[crazyivan]

If power is free and it ll stay free when you plug in your miners, you can make money. If not, go cloud or start staking. I recommend DMD Diamond, in case you decided to stake some coins.

[tarzan2]

I am in the same boat as you my friend except my free power is much more limited as I am mining from a residential unit with about 4kwh capacity (although my neighbors providing another 2kw tho he doesnt know it- dont worry he is not paying for his power either). If your looking for cheap Thash equipment check out the Terraminer 4.. I scored one for about $100 with shipping. Its a crap miner that draws a buttload of power (i think almost 2kw) and likes to throw up interesting new issues every so often, but they do get about 1.6 thash and people will almost pay you take them off their hands.

[notlist3d]

I am in the same boat as you my friend except my free power is much more limited as I am mining from a residential unit with about 4kwh capacity (although my neighbors providing another 2kw tho he doesnt know it- dont worry he is not paying for his power either). If your looking for cheap Thash equipment check out the Terraminer 4.. I scored one for about $100 with shipping. Its a crap miner that draws a buttload of power (i think almost 2kw) and likes to throw up interesting new issues every so often, but they do get about 1.6 thash and people will almost pay you take them off their hands.

That is so wrong.  Stealing electricity from neighbors .....

You realize if you get caught it is illegal?   And if you run 2kw (Sounds like 1 110 circuit) for a while... it will become felony amount in cash on amount of electricity used?

[tarzan2]

No one in our living area pays directly for electricity. Electricity is covered as a 1 time payment in our lease agreement. It makes no difference to him, in fact if I went right now and told him I think he'd be confused as to why I am bothering him

[notlist3d]

No one in our living area pays directly for electricity. Electricity is covered as a 1 time payment in our lease agreement. It makes no difference to him, in fact if I went right now and told him I think he'd be confused as to why I am bothering him

Then talk to him, make it where you are not committing a crime.  If it's that easy why not do that small chat to become legal?

And someone pays for electricity... if not him then landlord.   So "No one pay's" is not going to be true.