In the summer I might be going away for nearly a year. I was thinking I might want to try solo mining from now, until I come back (if I started now that would be nearly a year and a half of solo mining). I was wondering what miner(s) you guys might suggest. Right now I'm considering the antminer S7, but I'm curious what you guys will say. Also would it be a better bet to join a solo mining pool, or not.
Also if the miner ran into problems that could be an issue since nobody will be around that would know how to fix it. I'd probably need to be able to log into it remotely and restart it if that is an option. What are the odds of something going wrong, I'm not completely sure. I mined before and ran into some problems with the miners needing to be restarted, but that could have been my own problem.
The odds of a machine running for a year are not great. I have went over a month on certain machines. But a power outage, internet outage, etc. In a year you chances are will have a issue.
That being said you can leave a computer home with teamviewer. Have an account and leave it signed in on startup. You could deal with some issues that way. It is possible it could take a power off/on depending on what miner it is some are better then others. But if that you could need someone to physically do it. If you truly don't have anyone who can do a restart I would not buy one.
Or look into hosting or if S7 there is always hashnest. Then you can not be there depending on what it is.