i have $250,000 to start a farm help me plan it

[lorylore]

Alright, you have got many good suggestion, what i would suggest is taking care of cooling systems, try to keep for a long time all the hardware that you want to use.

[notlist3d]

Alright, you have got many good suggestion, what i would suggest is taking care of cooling systems, try to keep for a long time all the hardware that you want to use.

I HIGHLY suggest finding an area with low electricity and can use evaporation cooling.  At 250k a full evaporation cooling might be excessive but I would find others to team up and get it.

If you have cheap electricity, and a way to cool that does not kill profits yes it could be highly profitable.    I do think OP was not serious though, i think this entire thread is a "what if" type situation.

[Mikestang]

Even with cheap power, $250,000 is not enough to get a serious mine up and running.  Look at HaoBTC, for example.  They just relocated 4PH+ of equipment they already owned to a new facility and they spent $600,000-$800,000 to set up the new mine.  They have cheap power and 0 equipment cost and spent almost a million bucks.

Save your $250,000, I think it would be wasted trying to build a mine, especially if you have to come on a forum and ask basic advice.

[ferol]

Just one word... Venezuela! I spend like 3 USD  in electricity for 4 Antminers s4+

[notlist3d]

Even with cheap power, $250,000 is not enough to get a serious mine up and running.  Look at HaoBTC, for example.  They just relocated 4PH+ of equipment they already owned to a new facility and they spent $600,000-$800,000 to set up the new mine.  They have cheap power and 0 equipment cost and spent almost a million bucks.

Save your $250,000, I think it would be wasted trying to build a mine, especially if you have to come on a forum and ask basic advice.

That is why I mention teaming up with partners.  To do it properly it is not cheap, it's a massive investment.

250 is not to be laughed at it can bring a lot to table on setup, but I think you are right would need multiple with that amount to build proper one.  I have seen much cheaper ones, but you do get what you pay for.   

HaoBTC is like the top notch benchmark as far as dataceters.  There are some that are not near that quality.  If you were willing to risk low quality yes 250k could do a cheap building with some fan's internet, and power, and leave money for some miners even.  I know of a few old A1 data centers that were pretty .... basic is nicest word for it.

But long term ..... basic is not what you really want.

[Amph]

Just one word... Venezuela! I spend like 3 USD  in electricity for 4 Antminers s4+

very good rate indeed, do you offer a hosting there? it could be profitable for you if you charge something on top of that

because even at 0.05 it is very profitable let alone at 0.03, but i'm assuming that this not include other cost like maintenance ecc...

[notlist3d]

Just one word... Venezuela! I spend like 3 USD  in electricity for 4 Antminers s4+

very good rate indeed, do you offer a hosting there? it could be profitable for you if you charge something on top of that

because even at 0.05 it is very profitable let alone at 0.03, but i'm assuming that this not include other cost like maintenance ecc...

Part of it also is the political atmosphere.  Just looking up Venezuela lots of not amazing new's in recent articles ex - https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/07/13/venezuela-guyana-esequibo-maduro-granger/

So I'm not sure I would want to invest and build a proper data center there currently.  Although that price is promising.

One thing I do not know is power reliability.  Some countries have very cheap power, but reliability is a issue in some regions.  You would really need to go there first and make sure you can get lots of power, and it's reliable.

[ferol]

Just one word... Venezuela! I spend like 3 USD  in electricity for 4 Antminers s4+

very good rate indeed, do you offer a hosting there? it could be profitable for you if you charge something on top of that

because even at 0.05 it is very profitable let alone at 0.03, but i'm assuming that this not include other cost like maintenance ecc...

Part of it also is the political atmosphere.  Just looking up Venezuela lots of not amazing new's in recent articles ex - https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/07/13/venezuela-guyana-esequibo-maduro-granger/

So I'm not sure I would want to invest and build a proper data center there currently.  Although that price is promising.

One thing I do not know is power reliability.  Some countries have very cheap power, but reliability is a issue in some regions.  You would really need to go there first and make sure you can get lots of power, and it's reliable.

Haha, i have been thinking about it. Genesis cloud mining service charges 45usd per each terahash a month, and that crazyy! I could charge like a half or less for just plugging it another miner but that would mean a lot of responsability too, I have a room with an air conditioner 24/7 for those miner.  I started mining recently and I know many people have been making serios money here! There are many places with power issues but thats not a problem in Caracas, which is Venezuela´s Capital btw.

You can read more about it here http://www.elmundo.com.ve/noticias/tecnologia/internet/venezolanos-recurren-a-bitcoins-para-eludir-contro.aspx

En una casa llena de aires acondicionados en Caracas, un "minero" de bitcoin yace rodeado de equipos especializados valuados en miles de dólares. Pidió no ser identificado por temor a robos.

That is more or less what ive been doing heh...

[newb4now]

Here is the best strategy to earn big money with ASIC miners...

Take your 250k and use it to invent a time machine. And now forget how that invention has already made you the wealthiest man in the world and travel back to the summer of 2012.

Buy a couple of AMD GPUs just to familiarize yourself with BTC mining. Don't go crazy and build a massive GPU farm or buy those intriguing FPGAs you've been reading about. They will all be obsolete by the beginning of 2103.

Sometime during the summer of 2012 you will be reading here on BTCtalk about 4 companies who are planning to release ASIC miners by the end of the year... Butterfly Labs, bASIC, ASICMiner and Avalon. Now here's the really important part; the first two companies will completely flake-out and rip-off their customers, the third will produce functional miners that are super high-priced and the last (Avalon) will pre-sell their first batch 66GHs ASIC miners for $1300.

Order as many of the first batch Avalon miners as is humanly possible! And maybe slip those Chinese fellows some extra cash to skip ahead in line. Being first in line is VERY important. Order more than you can possibly host at home. You will soon be able to sell the extras for 20 times their original retail price. However, do not (under any circumstances) order from any later Avalon batches. The company will self-mine with them for many months before delivering the dusty miners to the customers.

Your shiny new ASIC miners will arrive nearly on time around the very beginning of 2013. You will now be the king of BTC mining! You will be mining hundreds of BTC every day (depending on how many miners you bought). Save those BTCs in a secure offline wallet and don't spend any of them until you hear about another company developing much more efficient ASIC chips... Bitfury.

Bitfury is important because soon everyone and their brother will have these loud, hot ASIC miners built by Avalon (and later, Butterfly Labs) that suck 6-8W/GHs and BTC mining difficulty will absolutely skyrocket. But Bitfury miners will use only ~1W/GHs. They will look like amateur crap, be finicky as heck, you'll have to buy tons of fans to keep them cool and probably quit your day job just to keep them running.

Now open your very full BTC wallet and preorder every Bitfury August batch card you can afford. Towards the end of August, sell every Avalon miner you have to clear space for your Bitfury gear. And surprise! Your Bitfury miners will arrive on time while people are still waiting for their year-late Butterfly Labs miners.

And now here's the really, really important part... sell every remaining BTC you have as soon as it reaches $1150 near the end of 2013. And keep selling every BTC as soon as it's generated by you quiet, cool Bitfury ASICs. Go outside and enjoy the weather, take that vacation you've been waiting to take, kiss a girl (or boy), walk the dog, etc. Do anything you want, you're rich! Oh and don't forget, you still have that kick-ass Time Machime to play with.  

Don't worry about buying BTC again until January of 2015. And certainly don't bother trying to keep up with the rising BTC difficulty by buying miners from KNC, Bitmain or Spondoolies.

Great advice. Reminds me of the Back to the Future II movie. Only with Bitcoin instead of sports betting

[sidehack]

Depending on how much work you're capable of doing yourself, it shouldn't be terribly expensive to set up a decent facility. Sure you'll need a crew to put up a building, but if you can do shelving and wiring and HVAC you don't need to pay up the butt to have someone else in there. Labor is usually half the cost of a building project. I had a building already but had to do all the internal wiring for the hosting room, and put up 50KW worth of metered power with ventilation for about $3k in materials.

[BombaUcigasa]

Here is our $1,000,000 mining farm installation: https://www.facebook.com/StartHash/photos_stream

If you can get electricity lower than 0.1 USD/kWh, you're good to go. We use about 1kW for cooling, 10kW for ventilation and up to 500kW is available for miners. Everything is designed to fit 1 PH of mining equipment.

We are also green energy conscious, so we installed LED lighting and run our pool and monitoring system off a Raspberry Pi. We monitor temperature and humidity and adjust our miners and cooling systems for maximum efficiency. Our in-house alert systems allows us to react to events and check all aspects of our farm's activity. Drop me any questions, I'm sure we can provide some solutions.

[-droid-]

Here is our $1,000,000 mining farm installation: https://www.facebook.com/StartHash/photos_stream

If you can get electricity lower than 0.1 USD/kWh, you're good to go. We use about 1kW for cooling, 10kW for ventilation and up to 500kW is available for miners. Everything is designed to fit 1 PH of mining equipment.

We are also green energy conscious, so we installed LED lighting and run our pool and monitoring system off a Raspberry Pi. We monitor temperature and humidity and adjust our miners and cooling systems for maximum efficiency. Our in-house alert systems allows us to react to events and check all aspects of our farm's activity. Drop me any questions, I'm sure we can provide some solutions.

Looks like a good setup, are you currently at 1PH?  How long did it take you guys from start to mining?

[BombaUcigasa]

Here is our $1,000,000 mining farm installation: https://www.facebook.com/StartHash/photos_stream

If you can get electricity lower than 0.1 USD/kWh, you're good to go. We use about 1kW for cooling, 10kW for ventilation and up to 500kW is available for miners. Everything is designed to fit 1 PH of mining equipment.

We are also green energy conscious, so we installed LED lighting and run our pool and monitoring system off a Raspberry Pi. We monitor temperature and humidity and adjust our miners and cooling systems for maximum efficiency. Our in-house alert systems allows us to react to events and check all aspects of our farm's activity. Drop me any questions, I'm sure we can provide some solutions.

Looks like a good setup, are you currently at 1PH?  How long did it take you guys from start to mining?

No, we are currently nearing 100TH, our previous location was only able to host 40kWh of equipment. We are planning to sell our futures contracts to acquire more mining equipment and infrastructure (like networking, PSUs, PDUs) and grow to our final target. There are still some kinks and events affecting our operations but we manage 4-5 days of uptime without human intervention (usually to reboot some stuck S5).

[Nixian]

About innovation why nobody mentions oil cooled setups ?

http://www.grcooling.com/bitcoin-mining/

[westhamfan]

The one thing I would reccomend for your farm is pigs. They are an absolute must.

[notlist3d]

About innovation why nobody mentions oil cooled setups ?

http://www.grcooling.com/bitcoin-mining/

One big reason I believe would be price.  Also very easy to put new gear that is nothing special in aircooled data centers.

I think it is going to be very very hard to beat a data center that can do evaporation cooling.  That is huge being able to do that large scale.  Other option is putting ton's of CFM of fan's and exhust it out.

I think price is reasons that site does now show a real unit just rendering of what it could do.  It's been a long time but there was one that had a immersion based at decent scale I believe, but it was a good while back.  Like asicminer blade days.

[BombaUcigasa]

About innovation why nobody mentions oil cooled setups ?

http://www.grcooling.com/bitcoin-mining/

Because:
- miners are not servers and are actually built to be air-cooled, at least current designs
- oil is costly to buy, air is free
- you need special receptacles to buy, air is free
- you need heavy duty pumps, fans are cheaper
- you need to be able to retool quickly, miners come in all shapes,
- miners get obsolete quick and they might be thrown out in 1 year, unlike servers
- evaporative cooling can actually lower ambient temperature
- oil cooling STILL needs a fan to cool the heat
- redundancy costs and failure risks...

[lorylore]

Alright, you have got many good suggestion, what i would suggest is taking care of cooling systems, try to keep for a long time all the hardware that you want to use.

I HIGHLY suggest finding an area with low electricity and can use evaporation cooling.  At 250k a full evaporation cooling might be excessive but I would find others to team up and get it.

If you have cheap electricity, and a way to cool that does not kill profits yes it could be highly profitable.    I do think OP was not serious though, i think this entire thread is a "what if" type situation.

Yes of course, because the hardware only works with electricity, then this is essential and must be cheap to profit.

[Nixian]

Depending on location if you have a decent amount of property you could build a solar farm, this is the only way to even try and future proof your location. You buy property, put solar power on it and host, use the hosting money to help build up against the invested amount while also using half to buy your own miners.

So you take container oil cooled filled with miners x funds you have or want to spend

Add this

And a bit of this

Wouldn't it be more profitable to mine then?

If we speculate anyway why not underground for location , Sahara , dunno how much it cost m² but can't be a lot , enough sunshine and temperature variation to generate electricity , at first glance the only big problem would be a stable internet connection.

Anyone has free satellite ?

[Oscilson]

If you have solar power station, then it is better to sell the power to make profit with subsidies and rent a farm to mine a coin of your choice.