100TB Burst rig questions


  • admin

    @manfromafar

    PennyWise2

    CPUs * 4

    Memory

    Controller

    Drives (just not at that price .... )



  • @haitch Nice except the controller. Megaraid and ZFS don't mix. If I had the 12GB backplanes I would get some LSI SAS9311 and reflash to IT mode for hdd passthrough



  • @Dtrade16 said in 100TB Burst rig questions:

    This is a great community and an interesting project. I've heard people using their CPU to mine as well so I may start off with that first and see how it goes.
    I broke my CPU cooler and I'm in the process of getting a new one. As soon as I do, I will get this loner desktop up and running and get a better understanding of everything.

    Ya, this is a good idea. Get a feel for the different tools used in plotting and see how it goes. From there, you'll be in a much better state for building an actual hdd rig.

    Personally, I prefer optimized drives (meaning the stagger is the same size as the plot, increases read speeds). The cpu plotter creates these automatically. The gpu plotter unfortunately doesn't, so you would need to run a second long-running program to optimize them. For this reason alone, I prefer to let my gpus do altcoin mining and I just plot with my i7-5930k.


  • admin

    @manfromafar This one isn't going to be ZFS - DAS. It's one of my other miners I'm looking at converting back to ZFS.



  • @IncludeBeer said in 100TB Burst rig questions:

    @Dtrade16 said in 100TB Burst rig questions:

    This is a great community and an interesting project. I've heard people using their CPU to mine as well so I may start off with that first and see how it goes.
    I broke my CPU cooler and I'm in the process of getting a new one. As soon as I do, I will get this loner desktop up and running and get a better understanding of everything.

    Ya, this is a good idea. Get a feel for the different tools used in plotting and see how it goes. From there, you'll be in a much better state for building an actual hdd rig.

    Personally, I prefer optimized drives (meaning the stagger is the same size as the plot, increases read speeds). The cpu plotter creates these automatically. The gpu plotter unfortunately doesn't, so you would need to run a second long-running program to optimize them. For this reason alone, I prefer to let my gpus do altcoin mining and I just plot with my i7-5930k.

    @IncludeBeer, actually the gpu plotter can create optimized plots. It's as simple as using the "direct" command:

    non-optimized: gpuPlotGenerator generate buffer {drive}:{plot file name}
    optimized: gpuPlotGenerator generate direct {drive}:{plot file name}

    In direct mode it will make two passes; one to generate the file and a second to optimize.



  • @haitch said in 100TB Burst rig questions:

    @manfromafar

    PennyWise2

    CPUs * 4

    Memory

    Controller

    Drives (just not at that price .... )

    @haitch, actually, for what your getting, the prices are pretty good. I got into Burst with the home PC I had and it's just kinda grownto occupy an entire corner of a spare bedroom. I'm not so keen on the tangle of power supplies, USB cables and power strips, not to mention the fact that the nice PC I had for general use is pretty much tied up with my mining. Still, it's been a good way to get my feet wet and learn the basics.

    I'm at the point where a second machine is a necessity if I want to grow, and after looking at your posts (thank you), I think I may elect to go the self contained chassis route. I can't imagine doubling the number of external drives I have have strewn about! More importantly, I'm pretty sure Mrs. Evo would not be happy and that I would be violating the happy wife, happy life principle.

    My fear is that I know absolutely nothing about the server level hardware and what works with what. I'd hate to get a "good buy", only to find out it is incompatible with some other parts I purchased. How much "advanced knowledge" is need to get one of these puppies up and running, or is it really more cookie-cutter and less rocket science than I am imagining? Any good "Resurrecting 24-bay server hardware for Burst mining for dummies" tutorials out there?


  • admin

    @Evo Happy wife, happy life I understand - mine tolerates me, except when the servers are making too much noise .....

    There is no cookie cutter template for building server grade miners, but if you want to post what you're looking at, I'm happy to tell you the pros/cons of the platform you're looking out, and what to complete it with. Server grade setups are not PC's, and need some planning in how to pull the design into the desired setup.Servers can have a lot of gotcha's to bite you in the ass.



  • @Evo Did not know that! Thanks very much for educating me :D



  • @haitch, that's pretty much what I assumed. Good of you to offer to advise on choices. Thanks. BTW, regarding wives, I think I have a winner: she's had to have noticed that the line of drives keeps getting longer and longer, but she hasn't asked once about how much I've spent. She will ask "how much did you make today". I tell her. I don't tell her how long it's going to be before I hit my ROI. Fingers crossed that things stay as they are!

    @IncludeBeer, no problem! I've had pretty good luck plotting that way. As I said, I do keep my files under 3TB each. For some reason the damn plotter, at least on my machine, will arbitrarily lock up on the big 6TB to 8TB plots.


  • admin

    @Evo re: lock ups - if you have a decent CPU, use Xplotter. It can resume crashed/halted plots.



  • @haitch said in 100TB Burst rig questions:

    @Evo re: lock ups - if you have a decent CPU, use Xplotter. It can resume crashed/halted plots.

    @haitch, yeah, I'll have to give it a try. Right now I'm almost (one left) done plotting a batch of 8TB SMRs. That will get me North of 100TB, which was my goal. Won't be plotting any more till the next machine, whatever that turns out to be.

    Had a thought after the my previous reply...if the servers can be so tricky for mere mortals like me to get right, what about Frankensteining a decent consumer mobo/processor with one or two GPUs and one or two SATA/SAS expansion cards into one of those 24 bay chassis? How would you imagine a hybrid like this might compare to the all server grade rig? Just curious.


  • admin

    @Evo You could frankenstein one, but you'll still need the right parts - the server chassis mainly use SAS expanders or direct attach connectors, and a lot of the backplanes are limited to 2TB or less drives, so you need to understand the specs of the back plane, and the corresponding capabilities of the controller you're using to drive it. Is it standard SAS SFF8087, or proprietary, X to SFF8087 ?

    Basically it comes down to high drive volume miners require good knowledge or good advice.



  • @haitch said in 100TB Burst rig questions:

    @Evo You could frankenstein one, but you'll still need the right parts - the server chassis mainly use SAS expanders or direct attach connectors, and a lot of the backplanes are limited to 2TB or less drives, so you need to understand the specs of the back plane, and the corresponding capabilities of the controller you're using to drive it. Is it standard SAS SFF8087, or proprietary, X to SFF8087 ?

    Basically it comes down to high drive volume miners require good knowledge or good advice.

    @haitch, it'll have to be good advice! We'll chat down the road.


  • admin

    @Evo No problem, happy to advise anyone on a build - made my own trip ups, and I'm supposed to know what I'm doing ......
    live and learn.



  • @haitch said in 100TB Burst rig questions:

    @manfromafar If they're not new, bitch to eBay .....

    @Dtrade16 Motherboard NIC, and proprietary Power supplies with the chassis. Current rig has dual/redundant 800W PSU's.

    Nice. How do you deal with the noise? Are the fans very loud?


  • admin

    @Dtrade16 The default rig is very loud. I have in-line resistor extensions to slow down the fans, which gets the noise down to a tolerable level. But as it's sitting 3 feet from me, it's not quiet enough yet. Thinking of putting it in our lab at work.



  • @haitch said in 100TB Burst rig questions:

    @Dtrade16 The default rig is very loud. I have in-line resistor extensions to slow down the fans, which gets the noise down to a tolerable level. But as it's sitting 3 feet from me, it's not quiet enough yet. Thinking of putting it in our lab at work.

    Nice, yah that might be a better solution. Trying to get up and running here with this loner computer. So many driver issues. Hate installing drivers lol.


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