A Few Questions

[IlbiStarz]

Hey guys,

I've been mining for a few days now, and I just want to ask a few things.

Right now, I have a HD 6990. I get about 600-630 mhash/s. I've been mining on deepbit's pool for about 5 days now. I wanted to ask if it's better to mine in a pool or solo if you have a decent-very good rig.

From what I understand,

Each block solved is 50BTC. In a pool, the 50BTC is divided by how many shares you solved in the block (for proportional). When you mine solo, I'm pretty sure it's the same right? Is the average number of shares the same? Can the whole block you solve be stale if you do solo?

If I started mining solo today, on average, how many days would it take to solve a block? Should I stick to pool, or should I give solo a shot?

[Jaime Frontero]

http://www.alloscomp.com/bitcoin/calculator.php

[error]

When you get your second 6990, consider going solo. Though with difficulty increases, I think it will still make sense to remain in a pool.

[goatpig]

Hey guys,

I've been mining for a few days now, and I just want to ask a few things.

Right now, I have a HD 6990. I get about 600-630 mhash/s. I've been mining on deepbit's pool for about 5 days now. I wanted to ask if it's better to mine in a pool or solo if you have a decent-very good rig.

From what I understand,

Each block solved is 50BTC. In a pool, the 50BTC is divided by how many shares you solved in the block (for proportional). When you mine solo, I'm pretty sure it's the same right? Is the average number of shares the same? Can the whole block you solve be stale if you do solo?

If I started mining solo today, on average, how many days would it take to solve a block? Should I stick to pool, or should I give solo a shot?

If you have a few very good rigs, you should consider soloing.

The difference between soloing and pooling is the variance. While you can be lucky solo and find a block really fast, it will balance out with a very long block eventually. In a pool you'll get your share of each block every time a block is found. So let's say you have the power to mine 10 BTC a day. In a pool, you'll hit those 10 BTC pretty much every day. Some times it'll be 9, sometimes it'll be 11, but overall, it'll have low variance. Solo, you'd be expecting a block every 5 days, but you might very well go 2 weeks without a hit or solve a block in an hour.

In the long term, the only difference in reward between solo and pool mining is the fee the pool charges.

[IlbiStarz]

So like how the pool will tell you how many coins/shares you have on their website, where can you tell how many shares youve done on that block? Does it go directly to the bitcoin.exe? How does the gpu know what address...because I don't think it's on anything.

[commlinx]

So like how the pool will tell you how many coins/shares you have on their website, where can you tell how many shares youve done on that block? Does it go directly to the bitcoin.exe? How does the gpu know what address...because I don't think it's on anything.

On the pool you setup a threshold when you'd like to get paid automatically and a receiving address for the payment and setup a login code / password you use for the miner so it knows where to send the payments. I've only used deepbit and slush but they both have various statistics pages that show details of current shares in a block, past payments etc.

[IlbiStarz]

So like how the pool will tell you how many coins/shares you have on their website, where can you tell how many shares youve done on that block? Does it go directly to the bitcoin.exe? How does the gpu know what address...because I don't think it's on anything.

On the pool you setup a threshold when you'd like to get paid automatically and a receiving address for the payment and setup a login code / password you use for the miner so it knows where to send the payments. I've only used deepbit and slush but they both have various statistics pages that show details of current shares in a block, past payments etc.

So then how does non-pool know where to send the coins?

Also, I was wondering how the normal block mining works. Does only one person mine one block at a time, or do multiple? If you stop mining, and continue later, do you mine from the same block or a different one? This seems kind of unfair, because what if one person finished 99% of one block, and another person comes and finishes it, and gets the coins. Can whole blocks be stale? (That's a lot of time wasted...)

[goatpig]

So then how does non-pool know where to send the coins?

The bitcoind software "mixes" your bitcoin address with the block before serving you with the hashes, so that once it is resolved, the 50 unclaimed coins reward attached to the block are attached to that address.

Also, I was wondering how the normal block mining works. Does only one person mine one block at a time, or do multiple? If you stop mining, and continue later, do you mine from the same block or a different one? This seems kind of unfair, because what if one person finished 99% of one block, and another person comes and finishes it, and gets the coins. Can whole blocks be stale? (That's a lot of time wasted...)

Blocks can be stale and usually are. The entire network is fighting over the same block.

[IlbiStarz]

So all the calculator "estimates" are wrong? ...then how long will it take me to actually get a block done lol.

[grue]

So all the calculator "estimates" are wrong? ...then how long will it take me to actually get a block done lol.

they are estimates. Mining is a game of probability, so it's not necessarily wrong.

[goatpig]

So all the calculator "estimates" are wrong? ...then how long will it take me to actually get a block done lol.

The calculator isn't wrong. It shows the probability to solve a block based on time and hashing power.

Your perception of hashing is some sort of linear, cumulative work that results in a block you are working on alone, like some sort of a puzzle. It is not. It is like brute force password cracking. You go through all the possibilities, hoping to hit the right one. Sometimes you luck out and hit it fast, sometimes you don't. The calculator gives you an estimate of how you long you have to hash in average to resolve a block. The increase of competitors is factored in with the difficulty so the calculator's estimate is about right.

[IlbiStarz]

Ah I see now. Thanks for explaning So on the calculator what's the difference between average and 50%, 95%.

[grue]

Ah I see now. Thanks for explaning So on the calculator what's the difference between average and 50%, 95%.

it's the amount of time needed to have x probability of getting a block. 50% means at that much time, there's a 50% chance of you winning a block.

[[Tycho]]

Right now, I have a HD 6990. I get about 600-630 mhash/s. I've been mining on deepbit's pool for about 5 days now. I wanted to ask if it's better to mine in a pool or solo if you have a decent-very good rig

Mining solo is good if you have really good farm, like 5-10 GH/s because otherwise the variance will be too high. In a pool you will get your money for each few hours of work and you don't need to care much about luck.

Each block solved is 50BTC. In a pool, the 50BTC is divided by how many shares you solved in the block (for proportional). When you mine solo, I'm pretty sure it's the same right? Is the average number of shares the same? Can the whole block you solve be stale if you do solo?

Yes, the average number of shares is the same and it's usually close to current difficulty value. But some blocks can be really short and some may be found only after a 1 000 000 of shares (we had those already).
Yes, the block of any solo miner or pool can be stale (invalid / failed to confirm), but in my pool i'm paying for invalid blocks too, so you can forget about this :)

If I started mining solo today, on average, how many days would it take to solve a block? Should I stick to pool, or should I give solo a shot?

The average time to generate a block at 615000 Khps, given current difficulty of 109670.13329248 , is 1 week, 1 day, 20 hours, 45 minutes, and 1 second.

I would recommend mining in a pool, of course :)