Plotting, farming, SSD choice and my experiences so far
A real hype has broken out around the new crypto currency Chia (XCH). For some time now it has been possible to start “plotting” and “farming”. I am fascinated by the idea behind the “Proof of Space” concept and how easy it is to participate. So I just started. There were a lot of setbacks, I had to calculate and try a lot, but slowly but surely it worked itself out. The big question, however, remains whether it is worth it at all and why one should wait a little longer.
Update from 05/23/2021: With little breaks I have now created almost 100 plots. Farming in the pool has been postponed until the end of May, so I will go on alone for now. So far, I haven’t received a reward. The network is growing so rapidly that if you don’t want to invest even more money in equipment, you basically can’t keep up alone.
The new SSD makes plotting much faster, but I haven’t increased the number because I can do a little less at the same time. It was just a 1 TB SSD instead of the 2 TB SSD, because the 2 TB SSD was simply not delivered. The new SSD is more durable and does not break immediately after a few weeks.
Now I’ll fill up the second 8 TB hard drive and then join a pool. There the potential income should be more regular – at least many hope. I am curious how the next days and weeks will go.
Contents
Chia Coin (XCH): The green Bitcoin?
As most of you know by now, mining for Bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies consumes vast amounts of energy. That’s why I’ve been interested in alternative concepts for a long time. Bitcoin is based on the concept of the “Proof of Work”. The more computing power is expended, the greater the reward. Ethereum follows the same concept, although Ethereum 2 heralds a change. In the future, they want to rely on “Proof of Stake”. If you have a lot, you get even more. Those who have little or nothing go away empty-handed. Since I still had some hard drives lying around here anyway, I tried Chia because the concept is based on “Proof of Space”. But anyone who now believes that Chia is really “green” is wrong. “Plotting” requires a lot of power, only “farming” is very efficient.
What plotting and farming means
When plotting, you create files just over 100 GB in size that are made available to the blockchain. This primarily requires a lot of writing power from the data carrier and computing power from the processor. The graphics card does not matter. The plotting takes about 6 to 12 hours, depending on the data carrier, processor and setting. That’s why you plot in parallel. So you create several plots at the same time. Here you have to do a little math in order to be able to use the resources of your own PC optimally. Nobody does this work for you, because every configuration is different.
For example, I plot with an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and a PCIe 3.0 NVMe SSD of 2 TB size. The Crucial P1 is not designed for plotting because the TBW (Total Bytes Written) is not very large at 400 TB. A plot is only just over 100 GB in size, but the plotting itself consumes 1.5 TB of write power. After just over 300 plots, the SSD would be broken. That’s why I ordered a Corsair Force Series MP600 with 2 TB. At least 3,600 TBW are possible there before the SSD gives up the ghost. In addition, the IOPS, read and write speeds are significantly higher. Professionals use several SSDs in parallel, as otherwise there will be a bottleneck on the SSD in certain phases. For me it’s a hobby. The goal is to create around 500 plots and then farm them. Maybe you get lucky and get a coin.
Prices for hard drives and SSDs have skyrocketed in the last few days. Whoever wants to get in now has to pay dearly for it. I wanted to buy the SSD anyway. That was the only investment I made. I still had the hard drives lying around. At the moment you are still working for yourself. A major update is to come on May 17th, introducing working in the pool. You can then team up with several people and increase your chances. The profit is then shared.
How I am currently plotting
I plot on my normal desktop PC, which I also use for work or play. That’s why I’m currently creating five plots at the same time in about 10 hours, but I don’t start them at the same time. Four plots are created on the 2 TB SSD. The system runs on a 512 GB SSD. I run the fifth plot, called “default” in the screenshot, individually on an old SATA SSD. If this breaks, it doesn’t matter. It’s lying around unused anyway.
The SSD is the bottleneck for me. That’s why I ordered a new SSD that will hopefully manage six plots at the same time. My CPU has 8 cores and 16 threads. Roughly one physical core is calculated per plot. But since I still have to work with it, I always leave a buffer open for myself. I am not making full use of the possibilities. You could of course build a special plotting PC, but for me it’s more of an experiment with the resources that I already have for the most part. I also built in 32 GB of RAM.
I currently provide 2 threads and 4 GB of RAM per plot. If you had a Ryzen 9 or Epyc processor, you could of course make more threads available. The first sequence in particular requires a lot of CPU power, while later it is more about the SSD. You can set everything manually. Although I plot in parallel, I start the plots with a delay of 15 minutes. That gives me a buffer at the back when the final plots are copied to the USB hard drive. This takes about 10 to 11 minutes. If all the plots are ready at the same time as I did at the beginning, the copying process will take almost two hours in the end. So you can save a lot of time here. But as I said, you have to try something out yourself.
Plotting setbacks
I have currently created 19 plots. In theory, I would be further, but there have been setbacks. Often self-inflicted, once it was due to the Chia network. The blockchain could suddenly no longer be expanded at the weekend and a patch was needed. I made the other mistakes. You should NEVER delete a plot while other plots are running. This ensures that the program with the wallet says goodbye to me. At the weekend I made seven plots at the same time because I also used the second internal SSD. Such a stupid mistake everything was gone. But now it works. I currently manage around 10 to 12 plots a day. Hopefully more with the new SSD.
Farming: Storage must always be ready
If you create one or more plots, you have to choose a temporary and final directory.
- At the temporary directory it must be fast storage. In the best case, of course, an SSD with a high TBW specification.
- The final directory can then be an HDD. This is where the plots lie until they are needed. So that you don’t miss a “profit”, the blockchain plots must always be available. The PC and client must therefore always be running.
At the moment everything is running on one PC for me, later I want to use a mini PC to manage the plots.
Every beginning is difficult: synchronization
On the website chia.net you will find out everything you need to know. There is also the client for all possible platforms. I use Windows. After the installation, the blockchain must first be on your computer. The synchronization took almost 24 hours a few days ago. The bigger the blockchain gets, the longer it will take. Synchronization starts after the wallet has been created. If you want to speed it up, you can add nodes manually.
I use the following nodes:
node.chia.net:8444
node-eu.chia.net:8444
node-apne.chia: 8444
But that doesn’t work immediately after entering it. You have to try several times. At some point you are connected to several nodes and can get started. Let the sync go completely before you start plotting.
Tips and Tricks
I found the following tips and tricks about Chia on the internet and they really helped me:
- Enable port 8444: Release port 8444 for your Chia PC. I hadn’t done that before and I kept breaking off. Since I released the port, everything has been running smoothly. I kept the virus scanner running and didn’t turn off anything else that would impair the protection of the PC. Release port was enough.
- Energy options: The finished plots are on a hard drive, regardless of whether they are connected via USB or installed directly. You have to make sure that the memory is always running. Therefore you should deactivate the turning off of the hard disk in the energy options. Also switch off energy saving in the USB settings. Then the USB hard drive always stays on. If the record is asleep and then you are pulled, of course, you have lost.
Chia is currently a game of chance
Chia is in my opinion a pure game of chance. With a certain amount of data, you are not guaranteed to get Chia Coins. One can only increase the probability. But that is also a fallacy, because plots are being created all over the world and the number is growing. So the effort to achieve something increases. The makers themselves say that you shouldn’t even start below 200 TB. Nevertheless, there have already been winners who then sold their Chia Coins. The current rate is around 850 euros. If you’re lucky, it’s worth it.
Important: The plots that are currently being created cannot simply be transferred to a pool. These are brand new plots that are created together with others. Currently I’m still plotting and looking where the path leads me. Basically, I only do this because I’m interested in the topic and the gold rush mood. The next thing for me is going to be helium. More on that at some point when my miner comes.
