Why do you mine on deepbit?

[os2sam]

The trick was finding a no-fee pool with 100% up time. After that problem was solved, it became a no-brainer.

It would be a good trick to find ANY pool with a 100% up time.  I have never heard of one yet.
Sam

P2Pool is 100% up time of course. If my mining computers are running, I'm mining. Now, if my power or electricity goes out, I'm not mining, but I wouldn't be with any pool.

So, 100% practical up time.

Doc,
Point taken .

But one must be aware that there is a default donation, I understand, (that isn't advertised???), and you need to disable if you don't want to pay a fee.
Sam

The fee is stated in plain English on the P2Pool wiki page.

Cool, glad to hear it.

But you then are paying a fee, even if knowingly and voluntary.  I have knowingly volunteered to pay fee's too.
Sam

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[Inaba]

Any you would recommend?
I tried EMC a while back, but they were having issues with high stales at the beginning of a new block from all the DGM calculations.  I will check to see if that is resolved.
P2Pool is a thought, but it sounds like it is pretty resource heavy.  Will there be a lot of network traffic compared to a traditional pool?

It's fixed ... block processing time was reduced from 6 minutes to 4 - 6 seconds.  Mostly due to an unindexed column in the DB, but there were some other optimizations as well.

[CA Coins]

Any you would recommend?
I tried EMC a while back, but they were having issues with high stales at the beginning of a new block from all the DGM calculations.  I will check to see if that is resolved.
P2Pool is a thought, but it sounds like it is pretty resource heavy.  Will there be a lot of network traffic compared to a traditional pool?

It's fixed ... block processing time was reduced from 6 minutes to 4 - 6 seconds.  Mostly due to an unindexed column in the DB, but there were some other optimizations as well.

Thanks Inaba.  I might head back your way to see how things go. 

[os2sam]

Cool, glad to hear it.

But you then are paying a fee, even if knowingly and voluntary.  I have knowingly volunteered to pay fee's too.
Sam

you can't disable the fees on the top 3 pools. 

Of course you can.  We have the freedom to not to use those pools if we don't want to pay the fee's.  I choose to pay those fee's because they provide a service that has a value to me.  Also I "donate" to another pool because that pool has a value to me as well.
Sam

[os2sam]

Cool, glad to hear it.

But you then are paying a fee, even if knowingly and voluntary.  I have knowingly volunteered to pay fee's too.
Sam

you can't disable the fees on the top 3 pools. 

Of course you can.  We have the freedom to not to use those pools if we don't want to pay the fee's.  I choose to pay those fee's because they provide a service that has a value to me.  Also I "donate" to another pool because that pool has a value to me as well.
Sam

You can't use the service without paying the fees. I can mine on P2Pool without paying anything to anyone except myself. 

One of these days I will look into P2Pool and estimate for myself the value for that software.  And if it is as good as you say I'm sure I'll be paying/donating more than the default .05%.
Sam

[os2sam]

Cool, glad to hear it.

But you then are paying a fee, even if knowingly and voluntary.  I have knowingly volunteered to pay fee's too.
Sam

you can't disable the fees on the top 3 pools.  

Of course you can.  We have the freedom to not to use those pools if we don't want to pay the fee's.  I choose to pay those fee's because they provide a service that has a value to me.  Also I "donate" to another pool because that pool has a value to me as well.
Sam

You can't use the service without paying the fees. I can mine on P2Pool without paying anything to anyone except myself.  

Edit: You are intentionally wording things to make it seem as if there is no difference, when there most certainly is. I'm not sure why you go out of your way to do that, but I think it's kind of silly. 

There is no difference between paying a fee on a fee based pool or donating on a pool that allows you to use it with no fee.  It is the individuals choice.  Being upset that Deepbit, BTC Guild and Slush are successful and fee based is kind of silly.
Sam

[DeathAndTaxes]

P2Pool is a thought, but it sounds like it is pretty resource heavy.  Will there be a lot of network traffic compared to a traditional pool?

There is some overhead to p2pool but it isn't significant.

For a large farm you can use 1 p2pool node and point all your local rigs at that node.

I have a machine I use just for p2pool, then my workstation acts as a backup.  A conventional pool is the tertiary backup.  cgminer points everything at p2pool, with other two options as failovers.

p2pool has never gone down since I started using it.

[CA Coins]

P2Pool is a thought, but it sounds like it is pretty resource heavy.  Will there be a lot of network traffic compared to a traditional pool?

There is some overhead to p2pool but it isn't significant.

For a large farm you can use 1 p2pool node and point all your local rigs at that node.

I have a machine I use just for p2pool, then my workstation acts as a backup.  A conventional pool is the tertiary backup.  cgminer points everything at p2pool, with other two options as failovers.

p2pool has never gone down since I started using it.

Thanks for the info.  I like the fact that there is no central point of failure for p2pool.  The problem for me though is I am running fpgas with only 1 cpu/mb.  It is a decent setup: core i7 2600k, win7 on SSDs, so I think it should handle p2pool without a problem, but I don't really want to install bitcoind on that machine.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Oh you FPGA miners with your fancy toys.

Well p2pool needs bitcoind no way around that.  Alternatively you can connect to a public p2pool node.  Some charge a marginal fee (~0.5%), and some are free.

[CA Coins]

Yap, cute little toys they are 

Thanks for the info tho. I think I will probably switch over to p2pool eventually, just now sure when I would take the plunge.

[ThiagoCMC]

Yap, cute little toys they are 

Thanks for the info tho. I think I will probably switch over to p2pool eventually, just now sure when I would take the plunge.

Let me know if you need help to switch to P2Pool... I can setup your Linux P2Pool server for free!   

[CA Coins]

Yap, cute little toys they are 

Thanks for the info tho. I think I will probably switch over to p2pool eventually, just now sure when I would take the plunge.

Let me know if you need help to switch to P2Pool... I can setup your Linux P2Pool server for free!   

Thanks for the offer!  I will let you know.  I am sure I have a spare mobo somewhere for a dedicated p2pool/bitcoind box.