Solo mining time for block generation

[littleb28]

So when you are solo mining, and the time calculator says for example 4 months to discover a block, does this mean it takes four months from beginning until you discover one, or does it mean you discover blocks at random times (could be in 5 minutes could be in 5 years), but you average one every 4 months?

[supa]

The last one - you're likely to encounter one-per-four-months on a sunny day.

Keep in mind that those are estimates and could be wildly inaccurate.

"Simple" math (overly simple) says number, on average, of blocks that contain one bounty * hashes per block / your hashes per second = seconds to find a block.

[Jack of Diamonds]

Slush's pool for one shows how many blocks your miners found. I "found" 3 in the last 60 days. But it evens out statistically in the long run so you are not actually "losing" 50 BTC every time a block is found.
In fact you will probably run into very long dry spells once in a while and earn nothing for multiple weeks if you go solo. Pools are much steadier.

[sirky]

Also keep in mind the difficulty will (probably) keep increasing as time goes on, so it will be harder and harder to find a block.