ADVICE PLEASE -Which pool is best suited for miners not running 24/7?

[BBitcoin92]

Hi All

I been given x2 S9 miners and have them set up and running on Slushpool BUT it's pay out method means it's hit and miss if i get any returns as i can only run miners for sporadic times approx 13 hours a day.

Can anyone recommend a decent pool that would be more suited to this scenario?

Thanks

[os2sam]

Slush is probably the only pool NOT to mine on in this way.  From what I understand Slush has a very small N for their PPLNS in the range of hours.  I could be wrong though since I don't mine on that pool.

Most any other pool should be fine though as your 13 hours a day will be your daily average.

[mikeywith]

You will need to use a PPS pool for this type of mining, any decent PPS+ will solve your problem, whenever it's online, every share you submit counts even if the pool doesn't find any blocks, of course, your "potential" profit will also be less and fees on PPS pools are higher, anywhere from 2.5% to 4%.

Viabtc > is good but fees are high 4%
Binance pool > sucks
Antpool is > terrible
F2pool > has the lowest fees IIRC it's 2.5%
 
There is also Sigmapool which is fairly new and also has a fee of 2.5% if I am not mistaken.

Most known PPS+/FPPS pools are okay in general, they differ in the small details and it's more of a personal preference, so try whichever one you feel comfortable with.

[os2sam]

You will need to use a PPS pool for this type of mining

Not necessarily.  A PPLNS pool, with an N longer than 2 days, would be fine as long as he is consistent in his 13 hours per day schedule.  His daily average would be 13THs, or so, instead of 26.

[DaveF]

mikeywith's list is pretty accurate.
Where are you located?

MOST pools have stratum servers all over the globe, but if you are not in a location that has one nearby with the pool you want you might be better off mining at a different one.

The occasional stale share is not a big deal, but all other things being equal it's something to think about.

Even now the f2pool stratum server for the US gives me worse results on cable then the viabtc ones.
Which is odd because they are both hosted on the Alibaba.com cloud servers.

-Dave

[BBitcoin92]

mikeywith's list is pretty accurate.
Where are you located?

MOST pools have stratum servers all over the globe, but if you are not in a location that has one nearby with the pool you want you might be better off mining at a different one.

The occasional stale share is not a big deal, but all other things being equal it's something to think about.

Even now the f2pool stratum server for the US gives me worse results on cable then the viabtc ones.
Which is odd because they are both hosted on the Alibaba.com cloud servers.

-Dave

Thanks guys, i am based in the UK, but i presume i could ping all servers to find the best?

So it looks like f2pool is the one for me.

I also notice the min payout is 0.005BTC, think it will be while before i reach that...lol

Thanks

[mikeywith]

I also notice the min payout is 0.005BTC, think it will be while before i reach that...lol

If the minimum payout is an issue check the other pools, via has a 0.0001 min payout IIRC.

Also many pools will allow you to withdraw your earnings anytime before reaching the minimum payout but you will pay some fees.

[wndsnb]

If it were me, I'd probably go with viabtc pplns since it has a 2% fee and their pool hashrate is large enough that variance is pretty low. Daily payouts may vary but by the time you get to a week or a month there isn't going to be much variance. Since fees are lower you'll end up making more profit in the long run.

[minefarmbuy]

I wonder how Laurentia pools slow decay would suit.

[os2sam]

I wonder how Laurentia pools slow decay would suit.

Well, it would be very troubling if you didn't know.

[minefarmbuy]

I could project earnings, but almost 1/2 the uptime on a couple s9 I would probably pps over pplns pools. I did a projection on earning for a TX miner with about 97.6% uptime, factored for them about 2PH loss but likely they're making up that revenue with their grind contracts.

[kano]

I wonder how Laurentia pools slow decay would suit.

Worst possible choice - since it doesn't even allow miners ... ... ...

Is there any point spamming something that he can't mine on?

[minefarmbuy]

Worst possible choice - since it doesn't even allow miners ... ... ...

Is there any point spamming something that he can't mine on?

You want to mine our pool? DM me I'll get you set up. We've also been through this quite a bit though but to reiterate, I would rather not have a miner mining our pool not understanding risks then wasting their power on some sort of dumb "whattomine" expectation of returns. We'd just prefer not to waste a miners time nor ours managing unless it's worth the risk to them or we hit our base hr.

[Steamtyme]

One that wasn't mentioned is Novablock you can check out there thread. I'm not positive but I think their fee was 2.5, but you can ask in their thread or through their support.

for what you are running and the timeframes involved, you won't notice a large difference between pools apart from their fee. I imagine they are all PPS+ in one form or another now, but if any state they are only PPS you miss out on an estimated Block reward percentage.

If it were me, I'd probably go with viabtc pplns since it has a 2% fee and their pool hashrate is large enough that variance is pretty low. Daily payouts may vary but by the time you get to a week or a month there isn't going to be much variance. Since fees are lower you'll end up making more profit in the long run.

Gotta disagree here. When a PPLNS pool is large enough, your contributed hashrate disappears quickly when seeking a reward with the machine off. This adds in a gamble aspect where you hope the lower fee, and variance good or bad puts you further ahead than a steady payment based on shares submitted.

So the choice between PPS+ here and PPLNS comes down to whether you want to gamble or not. I will say this if at a time the fees do go high it can be worth looking at a PPLNS pool that consistently hits blocks daily, as the miners reward can make it worth the risk over straight paid shares.

[wndsnb]

They are using PPLNS with N = 5 diff rounds, so on average you'd get 5 blocks during a ramp up or down. With their current hashrate (~10000PH) that comes out to around a 10 hour ramp up, 10 hour ramp down. So in a daily cycle running only 12 hours, you'd ramp up in 10 hours, run 2 hours fully ramped up, then have a 10 hour ramp down. In that cycle, the pool would find 10 blocks on average. Granted, the blocks the pool finds near or during full ramp are going to pay more, but there are enough of them over the course of a few weeks I think the variance would be pretty low.

You'll see some variance, but I'd hardly call it gambling.

[Artemis3]

Slush is probably the only pool NOT to mine on in this way.  From what I understand Slush has a very small N for their PPLNS in the range of hours.  I could be wrong though since I don't mine on that pool.

Most any other pool should be fine though as your 13 hours a day will be your daily average.

The ramp is one and a half hour, on each side. The thing is it pays to your Scoring hashrate when a block is found.

[oulous]

So what is your conclusion OP? I too am looking for a pool that works well part time.