I'm torn between Solo mining and Pool Mining

[BlackLung]

So here is the story. I've been mining since mid June and by July I had 3GHash/s. Since I've been mining on deepbit I have found 3 blocks; two in the last difficulty and 1 in the current difficulty. Also I've only mined about 67 bitcoins in the pools. So I'm missing out on many many bitcoins...
So does anyone have a compelling argument for either solo mining or pooled mining??

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[jamesg]

You are in a lucky streak at the moment but luck is a fickle lady. Also, you past performance has no bearing on your future performance.

You will definitely wish you were mining on a pool after a 2 month dry spell of solo mining as you will be running at a net loss for those two months.

Ultimately, it is up to your tolerance of risk.

[secularflesh]

Solo mining is highly dependent on luck.  You found 3 blocks in 2 months but in many alternative universes you found 0.

[bcpokey]

I was behind for a long time, and lately I've caught up to myself (in that the payouts from pools I've been mining is nearly equal with the number of blocks I have found for the pools). So, I'm actually a little ambivalent these days, more so than I used to be. I'd say one advantage to pools is the ability to react to market volatility. Bitcoin prices surge to 1000 USD per coin? You better believe I'm going to be really happy about the 3BTC/day I get from pools, and really really unhappy if I mine for a few weeks and find nothing solo (and prices plummet back to $3 / coin).

If you're in it for the long haul, I'd say solo mine, you pay no fees, have no stale shares, and so should theoretically come out slightly ahead in the long run. If you're looking to cash out of the magical money fountain at any moment, I suggest pools.

[fcmatt]

i am almost positive that solo mining for people with smaller amounts of mh/s are over for the most part if you want to pay
off your hardware. and by smaller i mean under 10 gh/s.

personally? i have found two blocks but also have taken about 80+ BTC from pools.. it just averages out over time.

[the joint]

I've been having the same psychological dilemma.  So, I'm doing a test.  I stuck a piece of tape to my computer and wrote things on it like "000000000000000000000000000000000000000" and "50 BTC" and "Solo Solo Solo Solo" to try to kick it's ass in gear  

[BlackLung]

I think that it'll be less disheartening to solo mine once the rigs have been paid for since the main fear for most people is not being able to pay for their rigs.

[HideousBeastManGuy]

You are running like God in terms of finding blocks.

Going from memory, 1GH/sec in mid-June was expected to find 1 block every 90 days running 24/7.  And obviously, with every difficulty increase the expected number of days should increase. 

There's really no compelling argument not to join a zero-fee pool, aside from not wanting to participate in a pool that is nearing the 50% mark.

 Just make sure you have a backup pool to deal with the annoying DDoS attacks.

[gnaget]

It is important to remember that you would not have found those 3 blocks if you were mining solo.  The header you were hashing for the pool would have been different than the header you would have hashed for yourself.  Thus, you can't make the comparison.  If you had mined solo, you might have found 10 blocks, you might have found 0 blocks.  Likely, you would have found 1 block.

[BlackLung]

So it is a month later now and I've found 5 blocks in total for deepbit... THATS 2 MORE BLOCKS IN ONE MONTH!

[mike678]

So it is a month later now and I've found 5 blocks in total for deepbit... THATS 2 MORE BLOCKS IN ONE MONTH!

I found my first block the other day through btcguild. It took me over two months to find it and I'm currently running at 2.6 gigahash.

[deslok]

I would not solo mine unless you have enough gh to statisically solve a block in a 2 week period currently 6.5 gh for this difficulty probably closer to 6 next change

[Tim the Magician]

It is important to remember that you would not have found those 3 blocks if you were mining solo.  The header you were hashing for the pool would have been different than the header you would have hashed for yourself.  Thus, you can't make the comparison.  If you had mined solo, you might have found 10 blocks, you might have found 0 blocks.  Likely, you would have found 1 block.

^^ This.  The work assignment your miners completed was from the pool’s starting point.  I think of mining like a giant game of battleship.  Unlike battleship you are assigned a random starting point and you have to proceed across the grid square by square in order.  Each other Bitcoin client and pool has a different starting point on the grid.  Pools assign blocks of work to their members based on their starting point.  It is nearly impossible that you would receive the same work assignment from a pool and a solo client so you would not have solved those same blocks while solo mining.

I would not solo mine unless you have enough gh to statisically solve a block in a 2 week period currently 6.5 gh for this difficulty probably closer to 6 next change

This too.  If you do not have enough capacity to hit a block in each difficulty you could end up chasing your tail forever.  The expected return of pool mining in a 0% fee pool is about the same (excluding stale shares) as your solo expected return except you will be able to able to participate in block awards in each difficulty.

[Desolator]

even with that kind of speed, at this point you risk not finding a coin while solo mining until after the point at which blocks change to only giving 25 BTC instead of 50.  You should leave that crappy pool and mine at a better one with better features and better security though.  They need to be stopped before they cross over 50% of all processing or they'll probably start mining forged coins and verifying them themselves.  BTCGuild is pretty awesome and FREE (and the 2.5% fee features are nice too)

[Meatball]

Unless you have 20-25 GH/sec, don't bother solo mining.  Unless the difficulty drops pretty significantly, you stand a good chance of never finding a block solo mining with 3 GH.

[btcbaby]

So here is the story. I've been mining since mid June and by July I had 3GHash/s. Since I've been mining on deepbit I have found 3 blocks; two in the last difficulty and 1 in the current difficulty. Also I've only mined about 67 bitcoins in the pools. So I'm missing out on many many bitcoins...
So does anyone have a compelling argument for either solo mining or pooled mining??

If you have to use some percentage of the the profits to cover costs (like any real business at scale) pool mining is the way to go.

[wknight]

Unless you have 20g hs i wouldnt bother myself

[nmat]

So what would you recommend as a good rule to decide if it is worth going solo? 1 block per day, week, month? Some of you recommended ~20GH, which falls in the week category...

[PatrickHarnett]

Depends on your appetite for pain - if you are happy with the possibility you will never find a block, go solo.  Reading around the forum you might find the outside limit is probably at the three month mark, but that's just my impression of what I've seen other people suggest.

For contrast, I did some I0Coin mining for fun last week when the difficulty was around 400 and I was contributing about 1/4 of the hash power - made for a lot of blocks, but I pushed it through a pool because I was having rpc resolution issues that I haven't bothered to sort out yet.

[jjiimm_64]

So what would you recommend as a good rule to decide if it is worth going solo? 1 block per day, week, month? Some of you recommended ~20GH, which falls in the week category...

this is a popular topic, with many posts to read.

When I got to 16G i went completely solo thinking I could get a block a week and bla, bla, bla....  I lasted about 8 hours and went to ars.  now I get about 9btc a day solid. I get paid for every share I submit.

I have since found 3 blocks with 4732612 shares at ars. in 2 days I will have about 150btc's at ars.

I have seen large pools go over 10-13 million shares without finding a block.  In that case I would only be halfway there after 12 days of mining....  I am so glad I am in a pool.