How Long Will it Take to Solve a Block at 17.6 GHash/s?

[dresdenreader]

Hey Guys,

I'm helping Hashrack.com get started with mining.

Currently, they've been running for nearly 6 days, have 517k shares and a current hash rate of 17.9/18 GHash/s.

Based on the above figures, when can we expect to see our first solve?

Various calculators put the solve around 7-9 days, but the pool hasn't been running at a consistent 18 GHash/s for those 6 days it's been running.

If we stay at our current rate or higher, my thinking was we might see our first solve like a week from now? Or is it going to be much longer since we're moving from block to block to block? (since they get solved before we can get much progress on them)

[1715329197]

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[1715329197]

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[cosmicone]

It's always a tricky thing.. could be 2 seconds if you're lucky!

There is no hard-fact you _will_ get a block in x minutes, or y days.  I've been in a lot of larger pools, where we would find a block 2 minutes apart, and then not find one for 5 hours. 

[lassdas]

(since they get solved before we can get much progress on them)

There's no such thing as progress, you either find a winning-hash, or you don't.

With 18GH/s at current difficulty you find one winner every ~8.2days on average, it might just take 1day, or a month, that depends on your luck.

Oh and of course the difficulty will rise in ~24hrs, so better make it a ~9day average, but again it might be a month or even 2 without a block if the pool is unlucky.

[dresdenreader]

(since they get solved before we can get much progress on them)

There's no such thing as progress, you either find a winning-hash, or you don't.

With 18GH/s at current difficulty you find one winner every ~8.2days on average, it might just take 1day, or a month, that depends on your luck.

Oh and of course the difficulty will rise in ~24hrs, so better make it a ~9day average, but again it might be a month or even 2 without a block if the pool is unlucky.

That makes sense. The concept of "you find a winning hash or you don't" is one that is sometimes hard to wrap my head around.

So basically if we want this pool to succeed we're going to need more people, because while it won't make it 100% that we will find a winning hash faster, we would at least have a higher probability of hitting one faster.

[cosmicone]

So basically if we want this pool to succeed we're going to need more people, because while it won't make it 100% that we will find a winning hash faster, we would at least have a higher probability of hitting one faster.

Correct.  Your chances of hitting the lottery is the exact same, no matter what combination of numbers you play.  Play more numbers, you have a better chance.

So with more people guessing the hash, the better chance you have of finding it.  It could happen on the first try, or the billionth try... really no way to know... AND remember you're competing with everyone else, so if you don't find it before someone else does, the whole thing resets and everyone starts looking for a new hash.

So it's all in the luck of the draw.

[debianlinux]

So basically if we want this pool to succeed we're going to need more people, because while it won't make it 100% that we will find a winning hash faster, we would at least have a higher probability of hitting one faster.

It could happen on the first try, or the billionth try...

Which when trying billions of hashes per second means you would solve the block in the exact same amount of time...