Choosing a pool

[skadoosh00]

I've recently been looking at the hash speeds of other pools, and now I'm a bit confused as to how one goes about actually choosing a pool. This is my current scenario:

Pool A: Less people, lower overall pool speeds. Blocks can take anywhere from 30min to 24hours (zomg..) to be solved, but on average it seems like it's 1 block every 5-7 hours. At my hash rate I get around 0.07btc per solved block.

Pool B: More people, massively higher pool speeds. Blocks are solved frequently, taking at most about 2hrs, but on average it seems to be less than an hour. At my hash rate I get only 0.007btc per block.

I get much higher rewards per block for mining in pool A, but it's disheartening to sometimes be stuck with a 12hour+ block. Blocks are solved a loooot faster in pool B, but over a 24 hour period or so, it seems I earn less in total than pool A.

Which one should I stick with?

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[NathanEO]

Hi skadoosh,

Did you do enough statistic work to proove that Pool A really is better? With the low speed you should get numbers for a good week.
if Pool A really gives you better income in the long run the answer clearly is Pool A.

If you also love to see frequent payouts for your happiness you can consider splitting up your miners.

Greetz,
NathanEO

[gnar1ta$]

I've tried several pools and it seems they end up paying aobut the same after a few days of mining, but downtime and fees were a bigger issue for me.  I don't know how anyone deciedes which is the best pool.  I ususally end up staying with bitcoins.lc because their site is easy to use, 0 fees, instant payouts, and I like seeing the estimated 24hrs earnings number.  It would be good to know if anyone has any real advice on pool selection though.

[farfiman]

In the long run It should more or less even out, but its very hard to wait over 24 hours - and sometimes 3-5 days on the small pools- to get a reward for the work.   A very small pool could collapse at any time due to lack of hashers or just cause the Admin isn't having fun anymore. In this case a few days of work could be lost. ( No offense to owners of the small pools ) 

I like the small pools and the Luck factor but it's not for all....

[cinos11]

The only way to choose a pool, is to do statistics yourself.
(Don't base it on amount of cash your making though, as it changes)

Base it upon down/up time of the server+stale share %.

[Dargo]

If you have only tried two pools so far, I would try some more. And the decision shouldn't come down to which 1 to stick with, but which 2-3 to stick with. Even if one stands out above the others as "the best," You really need one or two backups.

[ned123]

IMO:
If you have slow miners (slow GPU) with less than 100-150 Mhps you will be better in pool with less members (less power), simply because in the faster pool block can be solved sometimes in 1-2 minutes and you don't find a single share in that time.
Statistically speaking in longer run it is the same considering pool fee, difficulty and pure luck

[linkme]

choose a pool that makes you happy i personaly love the small pools and i have been through the 1st blocks of a few, currently on a new one and i'm loving what the new pool owners do these days to keep it interesting. Its amazing how fast they develop now.

if your all about seeing return now then go with a quick moving pool, that way u get your tiny bits of coins pretty consistantly But i love the luck factor in the smaller pools cause u never know, its like a gamble, sometimes they payoff very well if they solve ahead of the average.

Goodluck with your bitcoin adventure though.

[lobuche]

Hi

It seems that deepbit.net is down, I am getting 801901F6 errors

[jamesg]

In my limited experience, I have made the most BTC per day with http://arsbitcoin.com. Their PPS system is fair and cannot be gamed with pool hopping. They also have a large BTC buffer now which will be helpful for unlucky times.

[linkme]

PPS is a 10% reduction in earnings over time imho, regardless of the provider / algo. there are numerous rant threads about the pps issues, i'm not going to start one of those myself

[jamesg]

I am running 5gh/s with ars bitcoin and am within 5% of what the calculators estimate I should be making in a 24 hour period. 2% accounts for stales (my stale rate on ars is 1.0773%, the lowest I have had of any pool I have tried) and my donations to the pool. The other 2% can be attributed to the variance in the work you do for each share. Some shares require more work than others.

Ars bitcoin is a 0 fee pool unless you choose to donate. I believe the deepbit has a 7% fee built into their PPS which is why payouts would be lower over time.

I am not trying to start a flame war, just want to put the facts about my operations in the hopes of helping others. 

[spudhed]

mine at both, just run 2 instances of your miner and itll split your power down the middle, that way if a pool goes down the other gets the full whack of the power till you restart the other or it comes back online, i still seem to earn best at bitcoins.lc but i just wish they would either stop promising things they arent going to deliver or actually deliver on the promises they make ie "new features will be added tomorrow" no new features came "api will be implemented over this weekend" that was posted on 16th june, still no api though

[Orodben]

In just about all cases, the payout relates to your hash speed.  If you are in a small pool you make a larger contribution to the block but it takes longer.  In a large pool you make a lesser contribution but the time to generate a block is less.

As far as donations and fees go it is your preference.  Most pools require some expense to run.  Since there is a fair amount of competition in the pools,  it's usually safe to assume that the donation money generated goes to pool maintenance and improvement.  A  pool with no revenue is unlikely to be operated with the same diligence as a pool that has some sort of revenue (to compensate the devs and upgrade hardware as the  pool grows)

Look for a community that has similar interests and spears to have active participation of the devs when responding to issues and the inevitable problems that arise.

[lpcustom]

You are going to make about the same amount of money from any pool, depending on the fee. A pool with a larger hashrate will find blocks faster but you'll get a smaller cut because there's more people. A pool with a small hashrate will find blocks much slower but your cut will be larger. Stales can be a result of a bad internet connection on your side or other factors that are beyond the control of the pool server itself. It can vary greatly from person to person even on the same server. Of course, it could also be the result of a server with something going on. I'm just saying that a high stale rate doesn't necessarily point to a bad pool.

[supersonic3974]

I mine with Eclipse Mining Consortium because there are no fees and the owner does an excellent job with support, bugfixes, etc.  It's a small-medium sized pool and has awesome features like payout in either BTC or paypal and notifications via sms and email.

[farfiman]

In my limited experience, I have made the most BTC per day with http://arsbitcoin.com. Their PPS system is fair and cannot be gamed with pool hopping. They also have a large BTC buffer now which will be helpful for unlucky times.

IF YOU LIKE RISK FREE

[mikemacman]

Hi

It seems that deepbit.net is down, I am getting 801901F6 errors

Yup. They are getting DDOSed right now. http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topic=3889.msg351709#msg351709

[webosftw]

I suggest pool A, for the long run. PoolB isnt worth the time

[ihokamik]

Since the big pools are often under attack I prefer smaller ones.  Over a long period of time the payout should be similar.