If your overhead costs (rent, electricity, utilities, labor, ...) exceed 10 cents / kwh, you have no business running a mining farm.
Rent is already covered...and we have plenty of space available for this. I've got plenty of people...utilities are way less than average and this kind of power load is already budgeted.
If you believe in BTC, and since the price is currently low, you could buy some BTC directly and hold it as a hedge against rising prices and use it to buy more efficient gear once it is available.
That's precisely what I did last week. I bought at $217 with the plan to use that for the farm we're looking at building. If we don't buy a thing, I can sell the BTC and make $. If we end up buying gear, we're buying at a better price.
@OP, I chuckled a bit at your enthusiasm, buying five of each to "compare the two."
Is there any reason you didn't just get two SP20 Nano Farms?
Yeah, I tend to "go big" quickly. I actually ended up buying 1 nano farm. I had it in my head to buy 5...but we bought 3 because the TH/s of the 3-node SP20 was roughly the same as the 5 S5s. So I'll be comparing 3 SP20s to 5 S5s.
I see the thread got moved...hope I didn't do something wrong.
Thanks for the opinions and help guys. It really does help and keep things in perspective for me.