Hard Disk Mining: Hashrate | Profitability | Pros & Cons | Overclocking | Is it Worth it?

Hard Disk Mining: Hashrate | Profitability | Pros & Cons | Overclocking| Is it Worth it? – Today, cryptocurrency mining is a very popular topic. There are many different ways of mining, for example, using video cards or a central processor. However, there is also a less popular type of cryptocurrency mining – mining using HDD or SSD. In this guide from Bitcoinminershashrate you will learn what plotting is, whether hard drive overclocking is possible and how to make money with your storage devices. 

What is hard disk mining and how does it work

Mining on HDD is performed using the Proof of Capacity (PoC) algorithm. This method of mining crypto coins gained popularity when there was an acute shortage of other components for mining on the market, such as video cards and motherboards. With the rise in the cost of cryptocurrency, the number of mining farms has also increased, which has led to a shortage of hardware for them. Cryptocurrency developers have made an attempt to cope with the shortage and have come up with a new technology that does not require serious computing power. 

The most noticeable drawback of cryptocurrency farms is the high cost of equipment. At the same time, solo mining is no longer profitable even on the most powerful video card and it will not be possible to mine serious coins on a home farm, for example, Bitcoin. To solve these problems, an alternative mining method, HDD mining, was invented. Its creators, the developers of Burst, claim that their method is more environmentally friendly, because it requires much less electricity.

The good thing about mining on hard drives is that this solution does not force you to buy expensive GPUs, powerful power supplies and motherboards with a lot of connectors. All you need is a standard computer with a hard drive. However, it should be noted that the amount of memory in this case should be really large. That is, a laptop with a small amount of internal memory is definitely not enough.

Thus, the efficiency of mining in this algorithm is determined not by the number of devices, but by the amount of memory in general.

Setting up HDD mining

Setting up the cryptocurrency mining process does not require special skills. You should start by choosing a hard drive model. Below is a table with a comparison of the most suitable models for this.

Selecting an HDD device

If we talk about choosing a device for a home farm, you should focus on the cost of one gigabyte. From the table below, we can see that buying the largest hard drive by volume is not very profitable. The most profitable will be the hard disk with the lowest cost and the highest number of gigabytes. In this case, it is a model from the Toshiba company. buying several of these devices will incur less cost than buying one with the same amount of memory. The issue of power consumption in this case is not as critical as if it were about video cards. Here, using an extra component will not be expensive.

Mining farm on hard drives

A mining farm on a screw is not much different from a farm on video cards, if you look at it from the point of view of assembly and maintenance. To create it, you can use the same stand or a regular case for a personal computer. As for the rest of the components, it doesn’t matter what the model of the motherboard, central processor or power supply will be. The only important thing in such a farm is only the hdd disk. The low power consumption of hard drives plays a role here, which allows using the simplest models of power supplies. A video card is not required in principle, so the graphics core, which is built into the central processor or motherboard, will suffice.

Some users may think about making a farm on SSD disks, but this option is impractical, because the life cycle of these devices is even lower than that of HDDs, and the cost of a gigabyte will be several times higher. The storage speed is not so important in such networks and an SSD does not provide any advantages in this case. The only thing that will really be faster is the initial plotting process. However, this procedure only needs to be completed during the initial setup.

What cryptocurrencies can you mine on your hard drive?

Below is a list of cryptocurrencies that can be mined on a hard drive, with a detailed description of how to set up this type of mining. There are three such coins currently on the market. It should be noted right away that investing the same amount of money in mining with video cards will be many times more profitable. Hardami mining can be used by enthusiasts or users who believe in a further jump in the price of these coins.

The main cryptocurrency that can be mined using HD is the Burst project. It is based on the classic Proof of Capacity algorithm and requires only a hard drive with a large amount of memory. No other iron is needed to mine this coin. Some miners use dozens of 10 terabyte hard drives to create a farm for this coin. This amount of memory allows you to achieve good efficiency. But there are other, no less popular, projects that use this algorithm. They are Storj and Sia.

HDD Mining Burst

You need to start by installing a Burstcoin wallet. Links to download the wallet can be found on the official website. In this case, the latest version of Java must already be installed on the computer.

Setting up a wallet

After launching the wallet, you will be prompted to download the blockchain. Conveniently, the wallet allows you to choose the intensity of the download. While waiting for the download, you can register. However, work with the wallet will still not be available until the blockchain synchronization is complete. After creating the wallet, you will receive all the necessary data to use it. They are confidential and must be kept secret. It is recommended to make a backup for them and write them to paper. To activate the wallet, you may need to make a transfer to any address. You can get coins on the distribution in the faucet or just buy a few pieces on any of the cryptocurrency exchanges. There shouldn’t be any problems with this, since the coin is really very popular and is traded on many platforms.

Choosing a mining pool

The next step is to choose a mining pool. Here, this procedure is not the same as in other cryptocurrencies. You don’t have to download any additional software, since the burst wallet contains all the necessary functions for mining and plotting. The choice of a mining pool takes place right in the application. To do this, click on the “Start Mining” button at the bottom of the window, select the item you are interested in from the drop-down menu and confirm the selection with the “Change” button. The window that opens will require you to enter the password from the wallet and its address. To start this operation, the account must have at least one coin. If there are any errors, then you should try to make a transfer to any address.

Plotting

Now you need to configure your hard drive for mining. This process is called hard disk plotting and can take a very long time. It depends on the overall performance of the farm. This process is carried out by a software solution built into the wallet. To start it, you need to click on the “Write Plots” button. Now you need to select the disk where the plots will be placed and click on the “Plot This Drive” button. You will also need to specify the required size of the plots themselves, the wallet and resources that can be used. It is recommended to use half of the entire computer’s performance, that is, 50%. This will allow you to keep using the machine while the plotting process is in progress.

Click on “Start Plotting”, after which the XPlotter application window will open, the execution of which will take a very long time. You only need to perform this operation once. After completing the operation, you can finally start mining itself. Click on “Start Mining” again. The pool has already been selected by us, so you do not need to specify it again. You can start mining using a CPU or video card. To do this, you need to select either CPI / AVX or OpenCL. If you did everything correctly, the process will be launched and a green message will appear on the screen. Usually payments are made within 24 hours. The user can configure the minimum payout of Burst coin, but remember that each pool has its own rules in this regard.

Mining Storj on your hard drive

Setting up a farm to receive this cryptocurrency is even easier. Simplicity is one of the reasons why people prefer this project. The first thing to do is install all the necessary software from the official website. The number of hard drives that you can install depends on how many cores your processor has. Each hard disk is a node and allocates one core for each node. It should also be remembered that often in order to use the hard disk in this program, it needs to be formatted. This can be done using standard operating system tools.

Now that everything is ready, you can connect the hard drives to the system and start renting out space. In the application, click on the “Add Disk” button. You will also need to enter your Ethereum wallet address. To access it, you should use an application that supports the ERC-20 token standard. Next, you should select a hard disk partition, create a folder in it and specify it in the application. You must also indicate the amount that you want to provide to the network. You should also choose a random connection in the settings. This completes the setup. Each time you connect a new hard drive, you must repeat all these operations for it.

HDD mining Siacoin

To start mining the Sia cryptocurrency, you need to follow a series of simple steps, which are in many ways similar to setting up the mining of the aforementioned coins. First, of course, you need to download the wallet from the official website. The official website has versions for all three desktop operating systems, and you just need to choose the right one. The app comes in a portable version and no installation is required. All you have to do is unpack and run it.

After launching, you immediately need to synchronize the blockchain. It weighs several gigabytes, so this process may take some time. You can also download the blockchain from a third-party resource and simply install it in the desired folder to save time.

Now you need to create a wallet where the earned funds will be credited. To do this, go to the “Wallet” subsection and select “Create A New Wallet”. The system will provide you with an access key, which must be kept in a safe place. In an already created wallet, you need to generate an address to which coins will be sent. After the synchronization is complete, you need to top up your wallet with 2000 coins. This is one of the conditions for participating in the network as a landlord. Coins can be bought on one of the exchanges. Siacoin is quite popular and is traded on many platforms. Transactions on this network do not take long.

Now you need to select the folder that will contain the tenants’ files, as well as indicate its size and the cost of providing services. All this is done in the “Hosting” section. The minimum amount you can provide is 35 GB. The developers recommend charging the following amounts:

• 50 coins for servicing each terabyte
• 200 coins for each month of use
• 10 coins for using the Internet

There are many online calculators online that can help you calculate your profit. The same calculator is available on the official website of the project. On our site you can find calculators for other projects. It should be noted that their calculations are based on the current state of the market and in the future the situation may change.

Among other things, you need to configure the maximum duration of disk space usage, as well as the ability to use contracts. For users to know about your offer, you need to click on the “Announce” button. The amount that is necessary to cover the costs of network services will be debited from your account.

After the clients conclude contracts, coins will be debited from your account, which will be used as collateral. The system will automatically return it when the contract expires, but only if all obligations have been fulfilled and the client information has been successfully saved. It should be noted that the hard disk uptime must exceed 95%. If you are having any problems, you can try changing your router settings. The network accesses the hard disk through port 9982. It should be open to you. If you have doubts about the availability of your hard drive, then you can check it using special services, for example, SiaHub or SiaPulse.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Hard Drive Mining

Conclusion

Summing up, we can say that mining on hard drives is not very profitable and is unlikely to be of interest to people who want to make money by mining cryptocurrency. However, this technology is very promising and will be of interest to cryptocurrency enthusiasts. It already offers an interesting and secure way of storing data at a price that cannot be found in serious data centers. In the future, it may be refined and become much more widespread than it is now. However, it cannot be ruled out that a more sophisticated version of this algorithm may appear on the market, which will allow the use of hard drives in blockchain technology.

Hard Disk Mining: How Much Can You Earn?

With the rise in the rate of cryptocurrencies, mining returned to fashion, and, naturally, began to bring “miners” considerable amounts of profit. The next jump in the rate of all coins has already brought to the market new powerful video cards, processors, power supplies and other details that are needed to create an effective farm.

But, firstly, assembling equipment for mining crypto money is not cheap, and secondly, mining on a video card or processor alone (called solo mode) is practically not profitable, especially when it comes to mining the most popular coins, such as bitcoin … In this regard, the question of an alternative is raised, and it is about it that we will talk today, namely, about mining on a hard drive . You don’t need expensive video cards or other additional devices for it. You can earn crypto coins on a hard drive even from a weak laptop with a pre-installed graphics card.

It is possible to mine on a screw with the electronic currency BURST (Burstcoin) , for which neither farms nor special high-performance ASICs are needed. All you need is an HDD with free space.

The more free space you have, the more coins you get, but you don’t have to buy hard drives and create entire arrays. Of course, if you want to earn solid money, then you really have to buy equipment, but even in this case it will be more profitable than mining on a video card.

In addition to Burstcoin, you can mine Sia and Storj cryptocurrencies on the hard drive . BURST was created back in 2014, has managed to grow in price during this time, survive and establish itself in the market, which means that you can trust it. However, like the other two projects.

Benefits of working on HDD:

• You don’t need expensive PCI-E cards
• No need to buy a video card – just a pre-installed one
• The system is very easy to set up
• The equipment fits perfectly into the ATX case
• Saving on additional power supplies (10 hard drives “eat” about 100 W of energy)
• No need for additional cooling (HDDs heat up the same as one super powerful video adapter)
• There is no need for any special PC user skills

However, there are some downsides to this:

• There are not many coins yet that can be mined in this way.
• When upgrading equipment, old disks will be more difficult to sell than video cards
• When mining, hard drives wear out, so it is impossible to guarantee their long-term performance

Production profitability

To calculate how much berstcoin will be earned, you can use the Profit-mine website. For example, today a decent 3TB hard drive will generate income of about $ 20 per month.

Below in the table you will find a comparison of some configurations of farms on video cards and on HDD, in terms of total income and productivity for the month and for the year.

As you can see, the total profitability of a farm from hard drives is 30 percent less than in the case of graphics adapters. But here you need to remember about the costs, because the table does not indicate net earnings.

This table makes it clear that the difference in paying electricity bills is enormous (ten times less in favor of the HDD!). Now mining on the hard drive looks much more attractive, but it should be remembered that the profit will still be 30 percent less than in the case of vidyuhs.

It is worth noting that the values ​​for the GPU are indicated in this table for chips that have undergone overclocking and BIOS flashing, and for whisheters, the figures are given based on the amount of memory declared by the manufacturer, although in practice it is less. Accordingly, the “in stock” figures will be lower.

The main benefit of mining cryptocurrency on Hard Disk lies in the ease of assembling and running the farm. There is no need to look for high-power PSUs, risers and adapters, create metal racks with your own hands, and so on. About 10 hard drives fit into a regular system unit, while only 3-4 video cards can fit into it, and they will heat up so much that you have to think about an external cooling system.

Besides, there is no shortage of HDDs, unlike video cards. On the contrary, with the proliferation of cloud storage and SSD storage, hard drives are getting cheaper.

How to get started (using BURST as an example)?

Hard disk mining is not difficult, even a beginner can do it. To create your farm, follow the simple steps:

1. Download and install Burstcoin wallet at web.burst-team.us
2. Register a personal account in the client
3. Enter the passphrase that will be the access key to your account
4. Sign in to your account
5. Write down your personal wallet number, it will be in the upper left corner of the menu. You also need to write the cells that are at the bottom of the window (Write Plots). The system will need some time to generate data.
6. Get started by selecting blocks, pool and click on “Start”.

Which HDD should you use for mining?

For mining to be really profitable, you need to pick up a decent hard drive. The primary criterion here is the price-to-memory ratio. The cheaper 1 GB of device memory costs you, the more profitable it will be for you.

You also need to pay attention to reliability. This is a relative indicator, since, in principle, all modern hard drives are, plus or minus, at the same quality level. Below we have collected several options for the most noteworthy devices that are best suited for mining cryptocurrencies.

• Toshiba DT01ACA Series 2TB is a very good solution for mining. 1 GB costs only 2.4 eurocents. But the main disadvantage here is that a large number of hard drives are required for a really powerful farm. But if you have a certain number of old system units, then collecting farms on such devices is quite effective.
• Toshiba DT01ACA Series 3TB – one gigabyte costs 2.3 cents here. This is a perfectly acceptable option for budget miners.
• Seagate BarraCuda ST4000DM005 4TB is quite suitable for work, since one Gig of memory here costs 2.3 US cents.
• Toshiba P300 HDWD130UZSVA 3TB is another economical option. In terms of memory unit, 1 Gigabyte costs 2.4 cents.
• Seagate Archive HDD ST8000AS0002 8TB. Among the hard drives for 4-6 Terabytes, you cannot find a really profitable model, since one gig of them costs more than 2.7 cents. In turn, this 8TB model represents one of the best value for money combinations. Here it is only 2.35 cents per memory unit.

Related posts:

What is the electricity cost for bitcoin mining? What is a bitcoin mining pool – Best Beginner’s Guide Equihash Mining – Algorithm for Home Computers (Token and Equihash protocol) Top 5 + 2 Best most profitable Asiki for Mining 2019 List of the most powerful video cards for mining in 2019 What is PoS mining- How it works | Pros and Cons| Key Features