noob question
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@haitch Mine says 4096 is that what I want?
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@newsense2004 No, you want 65536. If the drive is already plotted though, I don't know if I'd replot - 64KB is optimal, but replotting may not be worth the time the drive is not available for mining. Future drives though, format as 64KB
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@haitch Not what I wanted to hear but better to learn now so thank you. Once I get a lot bigger I can probably replot one at a time without anyone caring especially if I get a second plotter and replot while plotting a new drive.
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@haitch thanks for the info.... i guess the next question how on earth do you go from 1 external hard drive to 24 :) ... i used to a laptop with a single usd storage device.... wouldnt have a clue how to set up a system with more than that
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@johnm I don't use externals, but to do a large number of external USB drives, you need USB Hubs - I believe the max recommended drive per hub is 4 drives. You'll also need PCI-E to USB 3.0 add in cards - and make sure that the card has a separate controller per port, not one controller for all ports.
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@haitch just started plotting 1 file on my 8TB with 2 cores so I can continue working. Is there a way to determine how long it will take based on the numbers it's cranking thru?
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@mrgoldy At around 14K nonce/min for plotting speed - it'll take about 2 days.
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@haitch Ouch! I'm at 3500nonces/min, I think I'll quit the process and start again at 3 or 4 cores.
Can you change the amount of cores while it's in process? Say I want to run 8 cores at night, and then when I start work, take it down to 3 or 4 cores.
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@mrgoldy The xplotter process is restartable and will resume where you ended it, so yes - you can run it with X threads during the day and Y threads overnight. In the xplotter command you need to specify the starting nonce and number of nonces: eg:
XPlotter_avx.exe -id 13919803089879865906 -sn 286096624 -n 30516232 -t <threads> -path <directory> -mem <memory>G
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@haitch if i was to buy a dedicated machine for mining, be it a laptop/desktop....what minimum specs would i need?
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@johnm the minimum specs I would recommend would be anything built after 2014. Ideally a 64 bit processor and operating system. Plotters use 64 bit, however some miners do not. Mining only would be ideal on pre 2014 models as i have done in the past with CPU miners.
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@ZapbuzZ so maybe a completely obvious question but would i not be plotting/mining on the same machine? so im a bit confused on your recommend anything after 2014 but mining being ideal in pre 2014 models....
as for the processor so ones its 64 bit im good to go?.... no need to have minimum i5 for example?
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the older the machine the slower it plots. It takes me 5 days to plot 8tb wth usb3 external on AMD FM2+ @3200Mhz But some people here have reported that the new core i7 intel can do the same in just 2 days. I have found older hardware or low end spec systems are great for mining. Its basically how long are you willing to wait vs your wallet size. Slower uses less energy and it doesn't take any more than say a 1ghz 64bit processor to mine. I say such that I like to use my astest plotting machine to play video games and surf the net so i can shut it down and use my old faithful to mine with less energy.
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@haitch Do you recommend a full format or will "quick" do?
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@newsense2004 I've always used quick.
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quick will do with maximum cluster size 64k oops my apologies guys I didn't mean to butt in :)
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@ZapbuzZ Thanks, a full format is going to take longer than i'd like to wait.
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@haitch IF I programed xplotter to plot 6000 nonces and i ended it whilst it had written 3000, and If i executed with the same command it will resume from 3000 nonces?
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@ZapbuzZ yes, but you need to specify the number of nonces - if you initially launched with -n 0, it will not resume, you need to specify -n 6000
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Is it normal my nounces are different on the drive I set to 64kb ? All my other drives have the same nounces besides this one.

