What does vardiff really mean?

[Sovietaced]

If I mine 1 share at difficulty 16 is it the same as someone else mining 16 shares at difficulty 1? What is the real value of difficulty in regards to work?

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[dhenson]

I am not an expert, but I will explain what I understand.  I leave it to others to correct my mistakes...

Vardiff stands for Variable difficulty.  Meaning that the pool will automatically adjust the difficulty as needed.

The pool issues a certain amount of work to each miner, the goal being to keep the miner busy without causing too much traffic.  If the difficulty is too low, then the miner could end up waiting on more work and sit idle, too high and a block could have been found in the meantime and the miner could be working on worthless shares.

Generally, it's best to let the pool decide on the difficulty and adjust accordingly.

edit... 1 share = 1 share.  If a pool is issuing a difficulty of 16, then the miner will complete 16 shares before submitting them back to the pool.  A difficulty of 256 means that the miner will complete 256 shares before submitting.

[Sovietaced]

That is helpful, thank you.