distributed mining strategy...

[miahallen]

Hello everyone, I'm just an enthusiast who likes the idea of taking control away from the central banksters running our world.

I've been loosely following bitcoin for over a year and have thought a lot about mining, but was put off by the promise of the ASIC systems being released and killing GPU mining, so I held off.  As the different companies have started to show up and advertise their specs, I've attempted to look at the markets objectively and make some informed decisions.  However, I AM STILL A NOOB    And I did jump in head first and pre-ordered a KnC Jupiter 400GH/s and also a CoinTerra 2TH/s rig.  The Jupiter I also bought hosting service, so that one will be relatively hands-off....but when I recieve the CoinTerra rig, I'll have to figure out the most efficient way to use it.

So, my question is this, what do you look for in a pool?  Could I setup my CoinTerra box to join the KnC pool that my Jupiter will be hashing for?  What is Cloud Hashing, and can I do it with the CoinTerra rig?

Concerning all of the speculative discussion, please save it for another thread, I've obviously already made the plunge, so telling me how stupid my decision was and that I won't make my ROI is kind of pointless...this whole market is very volitile, and I'm well aware of the risks involved.

[tacoman71]

Low fees and how long they have been in service. I wouldn't want part of the block reward to be stolen by the admin, except for a small fee.

[odolvlobo]

This is a good starting point: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Comparison_of_mining_pools

[miahallen]

Thanks for the tips guys

At what difficulty would you consider mining at 2TH/s individually, a bad idea?

For instance, if when I get my CoinTerra box the global hash rate is at 2PH/s...I would have approx 0.1% of the global hashing power, I would think at that rate, "going it alone" wouldn't be a bad idea.  But the difficulty won't stay put forever, and lets suppose it reaches 4PH/s a couple months later, at which wpint I would only control 0.05% of the global hashing power...is that still enough to be on my own?

At what point is mining within a pool advisable...or should I just plan to get into a pool immediately? 

[b!z]

Thanks for the tips guys

At what difficulty would you consider mining at 2TH/s individually, a bad idea?

For instance, if when I get my CoinTerra box the global hash rate is at 2PH/s...I would have approx 0.1% of the global hashing power, I would think at that rate, "going it alone" wouldn't be a bad idea.  But the difficulty won't stay put forever, and lets suppose it reaches 4PH/s a couple months later, at which wpint I would only control 0.05% of the global hashing power...is that still enough to be on my own?

At what point is mining within a pool advisable...or should I just plan to get into a pool immediately? 

Mining in a pool is advisable because you will always have steady payouts. If your hashrate is high enough to equal the larger pools (very unlikely), then you could solo-mine.

My advice for you is to join a reputable pool with good payouts and low fees.

[miahallen]

Thanks for the tips guys

At what difficulty would you consider mining at 2TH/s individually, a bad idea?

For instance, if when I get my CoinTerra box the global hash rate is at 2PH/s...I would have approx 0.1% of the global hashing power, I would think at that rate, "going it alone" wouldn't be a bad idea.  But the difficulty won't stay put forever, and lets suppose it reaches 4PH/s a couple months later, at which wpint I would only control 0.05% of the global hashing power...is that still enough to be on my own?

At what point is mining within a pool advisable...or should I just plan to get into a pool immediately? 

Mining in a pool is advisable because you will always have steady payouts. If your hashrate is high enough to equal the larger pools (very unlikely), then you could solo-mine.

My advice for you is to join a reputable pool with good payouts and low fees.

Thanks b!z 

So, I did some reading at the wiki linked above about the different pooling strategies, and it's a bit confusing when you don't understand all the mining lingo.  It seems to me that 50BTC would be a decent choice (3% fees PPS)...would you all agree?