Mining with a datacenter , need experts here :)

[globbiz]

Hey guys ,

One of the big datacenter (HPC) that i am in a contact with wants to use all their source for mining if it is profitable.I just want to know if it really worths it.

These are the equipments that we have :

Compute Nodes:

256 RH2288H V2
2 Intel Xeon E5-2660 V2

Total Computing Capability : 90.1 TFlops

GPGPU Nodes:

10 GPGPU Nodes with 4 K20x
Total Computing Capability :  56.8  TFlops

Storage System :

Total Storage Capacity : 256TB

Computing Network :

40GE


Total we have 5120 Cpus mentioned above.

So , with all these equipments could we have a deciaded mining center with a profitability?

Thanks for the help already!

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[philipma1957]

Not mining btc.

But possibly mining xmr.

That is an alt coin.

So this should be asked in the altcoin section. I have asked mods to move it to alt coins.

[adaseb]

The question is how much do you pay for electricity because it plays a major factor in mining. Now a normal person wouldn't be able to make any profit mining from home with their CPU. The profits would be very small compared to the amount of power it needs.

Since you own a datacenter and you are a business you most likely got some contract with your power company. For example, say you pay a fixed monthly cost instead of a rate based on usage. So whether you burn 500 kwh or 50000 kwh you pay the same monthly amount. Then when the CPUs are idle and unused you could mine then and you would get something at least. However I am not sure if you got a deal like this. Most likely you got some rate based on usage and if its anywhere near 10 cent per kilowatt hour then its not possible to make a profit. Especially since most likely the datacentre is cooled with ACs which adds more cost.

[NeuroticFish]

Most probably if the datacenter had 50 kWh for years and then jumps to 50000 and remains there, at some point sooner or later questions will be asked.
If OP is lying (no offense, but it has happened before, newspapers show it) and those that run the datacenter don't know about this, questions will be asked.
If all is good, when the electricity company will come with questions, the contract for electricity may need to be upgraded to a more costly one.

However, as already stated, all calculations start with current price per kWh...

[nc50lc]

The AC cooling isn't much of a concern since the Data center and AC units must be active as we speak.
For the Electric consumption, it will definitely rise as all of the idle CPU cores will become active when mining.

256 RH2288H V2 (with)
2 Intel Xeon E5-2660 V2 (each)
-snip-

Depending on the OS installed (namely, Linux and Windows), you can mine CPU-optimized coins (Monero as suggested by phil) using those servers since Intel Xeon E5-2660 is a quite powerful CPU.
But in terms of power cost per performance, you're on the losing side.

The GPGPU nodes' Nvidia tesla K20x are a bit outdated for today's standards either,
However, mainstream AltCoins like Ethereum mainly uses the Memory for the DAG file and that GPU has 6GB of memory.
The main problem is its power consumption of: 235W TDP
That's double (or more) than the power consumption of the recommended GPUs for ETH mining.

TL;DR: The GPU nodes won't be profitable, the CPUs might break even or profit depending on the power cost.

[adaseb]

The AC cooling isn't much of a concern since the Data center and AC units must be active as we speak.
For the Electric consumption, it will definitely rise as all of the idle CPU cores will become active when mining.

256 RH2288H V2 (with)
2 Intel Xeon E5-2660 V2 (each)
-snip-

Depending on the OS installed (namely, Linux and Windows), you can mine CPU-optimized coins (Monero as suggested by phil) using those servers since Intel Xeon E5-2660 is a quite powerful CPU.
But in terms of power cost per performance, you're on the losing side.

The GPGPU nodes' Nvidia tesla K20x are a bit outdated for today's standards either,
However, mainstream AltCoins like Ethereum mainly uses the Memory for the DAG file and that GPU has 6GB of memory.
The main problem is its power consumption of: 235W TDP
That's double (or more) than the power consumption of the recommended GPUs for ETH mining.

TL;DR: The GPU nodes won't be profitable, the CPUs might break even or profit depending on the power cost.

The problem with the Tesla K20x are not the power consumption its that those types of GPUs are not optimized for ETH type of mining. I am not sure what hashrate the K20x would get but the K80 gets like 14MH/s. This was verified by many people who rented some AWS and got them running. Basically totally unprofitable since its half the hashrate of a RX 470 which you can buy second hand now for like $70. Now I couldn't find a hashrate for the K20x but I am assuming it will be either identical to the K80 or will be a little slower.

Basically it all boils down to how much they pay for electricity, if they got some fixed low rate then it might be worth it when the GPUs are sitting idle.

[nc50lc]

-snip-
TL;DR: The GPU nodes won't be profitable, the CPUs might break even or profit depending on the power cost.

The problem with the Tesla K20x are not the power consumption its that those types of GPUs are not optimized for ETH type of mining.-snip-

But they are planning to mine with what they already have thus, making the overly high power consumption the main issue.
Comparing RX470's 110W to K20x's 235W, that's already a big NO.

Anyways, we got the consensus here (like my quoted TL;DR) that those GPUs can't be used; the CPUs depend on their power cost

[Piskeante]

moreover, if you are going to mine with the CPU, it's possible that the datacenter will suffer from lag, ping issues, or not being very responsive to a certain type of normal work while mining. This is to be considered because the quality of the service can be very bad on certain moments.

I would never mine cpu algos, and i would never ever do it with a datacenter. I think it's a terrible mistake (leave aside the problem of cost per kW)