A case study in entry-level mining

[graphicsdump]

LogicalUnit, what is your current GH/s? I'm considering a 100 GH/s unit for now and possibly the BFL 600 GH/s in the short future. April / May looks like a huge drop off in profitability for everyone - regardless of your setup - big or small, it seems difficulty is driving profitability way down.

[LogicalUnit]

LogicalUnit, what is your current GH/s? I'm considering a 100 GH/s unit for now and possibly the BFL 600 GH/s in the short future. April / May looks like a huge drop off in profitability for everyone - regardless of your setup - big or small, it seems difficulty is driving profitability way down.

My 3 Blue Fury units average about 6.5 GH/s (I sold my ten block erupters). I'm a little disappointed with their performance -- they are below the 2.2 to 2.6 advertised range.

If you can get your hands on one of the Black Arrow Prospero X-1 units for $400, I would jump on it. I'm planning on selling my rig and getting one of those myself.

[gmaxwell]

So you spent 13.95 BTC on block erupters which later sold for .35 BTC, so 13.6 cost after accounting for the sale. How much Bitcoin did you mine on them?

It would be super helpful to summarize you expenses and income on the first post.

[cdog]

Agreed, at the top of the OP you should have totals. Like, I invested 13 BTC and now have 7.8 BTC or whatever, to make the case against entry level mining a bit more clear to everyone

[LogicalUnit]

Done.

I now have a table summarising my expenditure, balance, and hashrate on the first page.

The table looks fine in preview mode, but the columns aren't rendering nicely on the live page. Oh well.

[LogicalUnit]

After mining on p2pool for several weeks without a payout, I have gone back to eclipsemc. I need to find a reliable pool that is resistent to ddos attacks. . .

[cevad]

After mining on p2pool for several weeks without a payout, I have gone back to eclipsemc. I need to find a reliable pool that is resistent to ddos attacks. . .

I havent had any issues with btcguild.com

[Sonny]

LogicalUnit, what is your current GH/s? I'm considering a 100 GH/s unit for now and possibly the BFL 600 GH/s in the short future. April / May looks like a huge drop off in profitability for everyone - regardless of your setup - big or small, it seems difficulty is driving profitability way down.

Why BFL?
and why BFL pre-orders lol?

[cryptohead]

You would have tripled your initial investment from just holding the coin and selling it now.
As it stands, you are still to break even.

[Pt0x]

LogicalUnit, what is your current GH/s? I'm considering a 100 GH/s unit for now and possibly the BFL 600 GH/s in the short future. April / May looks like a huge drop off in profitability for everyone - regardless of your setup - big or small, it seems difficulty is driving profitability way down.

You should buy Ants

[LogicalUnit]

Against my better judgment. . .

Just spent 0.5 BTC on another 5 Red Fury ASICs. With my current 3, this should give me about 17.6 GH/s total.

[gkahr78]

Against my better judgment. . .

Just spent 0.5 BTC on another 5 Red Fury ASICs. With my current 3, this should give me about 17.6 GH/s total.

You could pencil-mod them. I have 10 Red Fury's and with pencil-mod they run 2.8-3.1 gh/s.

[batt01]

Against my better judgment. . .

Just spent 0.5 BTC on another 5 Red Fury ASICs. With my current 3, this should give me about 17.6 GH/s total.

You could have gotten an Asic Cube for .39BTC they do 38ghs.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=349787.0

[ChuckBuck]

Against my better judgment. . .

Just spent 0.5 BTC on another 5 Red Fury ASICs. With my current 3, this should give me about 17.6 GH/s total.

Could have spent less at .295 BTC to do a hosted Group Buy of 1 share of Antminer/scrypt rig at 18 GH/s and 18 kH/s:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=434311.0

[LogicalUnit]

Pool Discussion

It's worth talking about choice of mining pool. Initially, I didn't think that choice of pool made much difference -- oh how wrong I was.

Firstly I chose eclipsemc. This is a medium-sized pool, but has been under heavy cyber-attack, and is quite unreliable. Lots of downtime.

Next I chose an Australian pool ozco.in. This is a small pool, and it can take weeks to solve a block. This, combined with a minimum payout threshold has left my earnings stranded.

Then I used p2pool, which as we have discussed in another thread, is not good at all for miners with my level of variance.

Now, I have signed up to btcguild. It's a large pool, and we shall see how reliable it is.

I know that I haven't gone into much technical detail with this post, and there are lots of theoretical scenarios that could occur. I'm just reporting on my experience with each pool I have used for the benefit of others.

[D05GTO]

Yeah, Pools make a big difference.  I did Deepbit...I know they are terrible now.  Slush is ok but can have some long blocks...However it usually ends up giving me the highest BTC payout after a week.  BTCGuild is pretty good and a steady payout.. I like their charts and features.  Seems I get the lowest with Elgiuis.   These are after a week on each and swapping back and forth.

[LogicalUnit]

Even More Furious

Five Red Fury ASICs just arrived in the post, and are up and running. No shenanigans with MinePeon -- I just plugged in a second DUB-H7 hub and rebooted. The 2.2 to 2.6 GH/s rating is a little generous. Realistically, you will get 2.0 to 2.4 GH/s out of each device. So now I am mining with 5 Red Fury and 3 Blue Fury ASICs at 17.6GH/s (my speed prediction was spot on). Total expenditure for this latest upgrade was 0.52 BTC

The only apparent difference between Red and Blue Fury units I can see is that the red ones have a bigger heatsink. This might improve performance, but because they both show up in MinePeon as "BF1" I can't know for sure.

It's also worth mentioning that I added a plastic Pi Tin to my RPi, and stability seems to have improved!

I will update the first post.

[LogicalUnit]

[STT]

Now, I have signed up to btcguild. It's a large pool, and we shall see how reliable it is.

BTCguild is very good and has been for a while, good features online and reliable

[LogicalUnit]

Now, I have signed up to btcguild. It's a large pool, and we shall see how reliable it is.

BTCguild is very good and has been for a while, good features online and reliable

I agree. It's been reliable and stable for me. I can recommend it.