Advice on Mining Farm Buildout

[gwestcot]

Hello everyone! I am now attempting to move from home mining into a 1250 sq ft warehouse. I will increase my mining from 5 to 20 6x GTX 1070 zcash mining rigs. The rigs are rack mountable and will be installed in 42U racks. I am also going to have 3 phase 480V service installed at the maximum amount of amperage allowable by the power company. I have read up quite a bit on data center infrastructure which seems to be similar to a mining operation. I will have raised floors with the cooling initially being done by a single 30 ton Liebert downflow CRAC Unit. Additionally, I will be using a hot aisle cold aisle setup to maintain air flow efficiency. My main issue is in my lack of knowledge with power distribution. Unlike a data center, I do not initially care about redundancy and backup power because of cost considerations so a single flow of electricity is fine by me for my first setup. My main question has to do with how the large 225+ kvA PDU's are installed. Do they wire into a main distribution panel or do they feed directly into a service line? My single line was hard to plan because I lack the knowledge. It was supposed to go service line-->panel-->PDU's (480V to 208V/120V)-->Vertical metered PDU's-->Mining Rigs. I will also have all my wiring, patch cables and electrical conduit run through cable trays above the racks. If you have any information that could help me with power distribution or the overall design of my medium sized farm then I would be very thankful! Have a great day!     

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[drsub]

Unless you have cheap electricty, sometimes is better to just put your rigs at a hosting facility.

[gwestcot]

Why? Even with .11 per kwh on my electricity there is still 7000 dollars profit every month with 20 rigs. That is after the subtraction of electricity of the rigs, electricity for cooling, insurance, water, internet, and of course rent. I really was just looking for some help in regards to infrastructure since I have already ascertained that it is profitable to mine.

[szafa]

What advice you want to know?

[jwarren81]

I'm looking at doing similar, but not full data center like you are describing.  I was planning on multiple 30A 208V or possible 230V outlets wired to metered and switched PDUs.  These are very common for data centers.  Each line would terminate at the rack with a NEMA L6-30R receptacle for your PDU to plug into.  Based on 4U rigs, 10 rigs per 42U rack, and 1000W per rig; two 30A circuits per rack should be sufficient.  Physically you can't get much more than that in a standard 42U rack anyways.  That's sixty cards per rack . . . maybe 80 if you pack it, but you better be moving some air.

Sounds fun!  Can't wait for my own, still working on a location.

Jake

[jwarren81]

Re-read your question . . . I think it depends on the building and the service coming in and whether existing distribution panels can support it or if they need to run all new from the main.  At the data center I work at, we have distribution panels in the server room that our racks pull from directly.  The distribution panel pulls from the main electrical room with the hardware for backup battery's and generators.  We recently had a redundant battery and PDU installed directly in the room for a second leg, which pulls from the main electrical room.  I'd have to talk with our electrical guys to get much more detail than that.  I typically only get involved when specifying what gets run to the racks.

[KaydenC]

I'm starting a farm too in a 1600 sqft warehouse. I'm installing 2x fans roughly 50cm in diameter for exhaust cooling, with the ability to expand to 4 fans. No raised floors because additional exhaust airflow is simpler, faster, cheaper.

For power, the warehouse I rented has 3 phrase 415v 40A wired to 6x 13A 240v wall sockets. The plan is to use the pre-installed circuit to 80% load, and install distribution boards with sockets on them, like these (but larger with more sockets): http://ssses.in/products/atm-db-panels/

This way I can plug the psu directly in standard UK plug PDU, and into the distribution board. Again, simple, fast, cheap. The money saved will be spent on more vega gpus.

[emdje]

We do want pictures when you start building your mining operation 
And good luck!

[gwestcot]

I was going to go with just one vertical PDU and that was going to be of the Tripplite 50A 208V variety that is rated at 14.4 kwh but I think two 30 amps rated at 8.6 kwh would be a little better as far as load bearing goes so thank you for the suggestion. I will of course give pictures but simply 2 42U racks full of rack mountable rigs wouldn't be so sexy. I guess once I kick it off I will show the step by step process and everything that needs to be done for a more traditional build out. I plan to add another 40 rigs or so 9 months after the initial setup. Anyways, thank you for the responses!

[zij]

.......but simply 2 42U racks full of rack mountable rigs wouldn't be so sexy. I guess once I kick it off I will show the step by step process and everything that needs to be done for a more traditional build out. I plan to add another 40 rigs or so 9 months after the initial setup.

If you have that much space in the warehouse, why not spread things out a bit rather than keeping every in 42U cabinets?  It will help with keeping things getting too hot..  Also, how high is the roof as having a high room and 1250 sqft or more space should naturally keep things cool but it will depend on where you are in the world.  Iceland cooler than Dubai..

[gwestcot]

I am keeping them in cabinets because it is space efficient and it allows me to control the flow of air in a predictable manner. I will continue to rapidly expand the mining operations as quickly as I possibly can so racks also allow a certain degree of organization in regards to cable management. Well the warehouse I am looking at has pretty standard ceilings at 18 ft tall. I live in Florida so it is very very warm here in comparison to places up in the north. That being said I won't have the humidity control issues that dryer climates have in data centers.

[Sandal_Hat]

Why? Even with .11 per kwh on my electricity there is still 7000 dollars profit every month with 20 rigs. That is after the subtraction of electricity of the rigs, electricity for cooling, insurance, water, internet, and of course rent. I really was just looking for some help in regards to infrastructure since I have already ascertained that it is profitable to mine.

Have u tested this or is this your assumption with online calculators??

[Jamievs]

Why? Even with .11 per kwh on my electricity there is still 7000 dollars profit every month with 20 rigs. That is after the subtraction of electricity of the rigs, electricity for cooling, insurance, water, internet, and of course rent. I really was just looking for some help in regards to infrastructure since I have already ascertained that it is profitable to mine.

Have u tested this or is this your assumption with online calculators??

I pay .17 per kw/h and still make a fair profit. Based on actual power usage and actual hash rates from the hardware I have mining right now 

[gwestcot]

I have actual hardware that is running right now of course and I keep a spreadsheet of payouts and fees for tax purposes. I know the power companies commercial rates so from there it is fairly trivial to calculate. Cooling costs are roughly 50% of the cost to run the miners depending on the time of year of course. Zcash is especially good to mine for the long term so I am just sticking with that for now.

[Sandal_Hat]

I have actual hardware that is running right now of course and I keep a spreadsheet of payouts and fees for tax purposes. I know the power companies commercial rates so from there it is fairly trivial to calculate. Cooling costs are roughly 50% of the cost to run the miners depending on the time of year of course. Zcash is especially good to mine for the long term so I am just sticking with that for now.

I see. Yours is 0.11 + 0.055, around usd 0.165 cents cost to gpu mine and so far, is working out. Thanks for the info.

I am surprised cooling cost is so high.

[Sandal_Hat]

Why? Even with .11 per kwh on my electricity there is still 7000 dollars profit every month with 20 rigs. That is after the subtraction of electricity of the rigs, electricity for cooling, insurance, water, internet, and of course rent. I really was just looking for some help in regards to infrastructure since I have already ascertained that it is profitable to mine.

Have u tested this or is this your assumption with online calculators??

I pay .17 per kw/h and still make a fair profit. Based on actual power usage and actual hash rates from the hardware I have mining right now 

U are talking about gpu mining and not bitcoin right

[Jamievs]

Why? Even with .11 per kwh on my electricity there is still 7000 dollars profit every month with 20 rigs. That is after the subtraction of electricity of the rigs, electricity for cooling, insurance, water, internet, and of course rent. I really was just looking for some help in regards to infrastructure since I have already ascertained that it is profitable to mine.

Have u tested this or is this your assumption with online calculators??

I pay .17 per kw/h and still make a fair profit. Based on actual power usage and actual hash rates from the hardware I have mining right now 

U are talking about gpu mining and not bitcoin right

Well this is the altcoin subboard ain't it?

[jMEGA]

Have you looked into renting space from a local colo? Won't have to worry about internet, cooling, insurance, security, etc.

[jwarren81]

Have you looked at mining Skein based coins at all?  And multi-algo mining?  I've found it much more profitable with the right setup.  Are you running Windows or linux on your rigs?

I have actual hardware that is running right now of course and I keep a spreadsheet of payouts and fees for tax purposes. I know the power companies commercial rates so from there it is fairly trivial to calculate. Cooling costs are roughly 50% of the cost to run the miners depending on the time of year of course. Zcash is especially good to mine for the long term so I am just sticking with that for now.

[gwestcot]

Ya I would rather run my own operation than to utilize any collocation services. I am running windows on my rigs since it is what I am most familiar with it in comparison to Linux.