How much internet is needed for mining, it is important to know

No matter how powerful a mining farm is, without Internet access it will be just a productive computing machine, unable to mine cryptocurrencies.

For mining any modern cryptocurrency, it is necessary that the solutions found by miners are confirmed by other computers connected to the network. A reasonable question arises about how much traffic is consumed by mining and whether the speed of the Internet affects its performance.

What is important when setting up the Internet for mining cryptocurrencies

In the process of mining cryptocurrencies, the first computer to find a block that has received a sufficient number of confirmations receives a reward for this. In this regard, it is important not only to find the right solution, but also to share it with other computers on the network in time. This is especially important for those cryptocurrencies where the average time between blocks is relatively short.

For example, in the algorithm blockchain cryptocurrency ether the average time between blocks is laid down, equal to 15 seconds. IN bitcoin this period of time is 20 minutes. If the Ethereum miner finds the right solution, but sends it to the pool after a new block is created, it will be useless. Such a solution (ball) are called stale share and it is usually not counted when distributing the reward for the blocks found by the pool due to its uselessness. Miner computer, who found this solution, did some work and spent electricity on it, but it is unprofitable due to its arrival at the pool server too late. When mining bitcoin, the probability of decision loss is much less due to the longer time interval between blocks.

Therefore, when mining cryptocurrencies, it is important to have a short time for information to pass through the network, which is called ping… The lower the ping from the miner’s computer to the pool server, the less losses of the faithful shares will be during their transfer.

The size of information that is transmitted during the exchange between mining programs and pool servers is negligible, so even in a month the volume of mining farm traffic will be very small (if various service services, updates and spyware modules are disabled in it).

What you need to know when choosing the Internet for mining farms at home

At home, you need a higher internet speed than for mining, because sometimes you download large files and watch movies online. As a rule, the landline Internet spent at home has sufficient ping and speed indicators for mining, so there should not be any special problems when using the home Internet.

When choosing an Internet communication channel, you should, if possible, choose providers that provide the smallest ping. This will allow you to more quickly receive new tasks for finding solutions for building a blockchain from the pool servers, as well as faster transfer the found shares to them.

On serious pools, you can track the number of stale shares online… In addition, almost all software miners show the time it takes to pass the ball. This makes it possible to choose the fastest pool (with less ping) and thus slightly increase mining income.

Phoenix Miner window showing that the balls have been accepted by the server eu1 pula ethermine for 30 and 31 millisecond:

At the same time, ping to the server eu1 pula ethermine is only 1 ms:

According to information about belated balls on ethermine.org, when mining ether due to various delays, even when pinging in 1 msis lost 1-2% ball:

You can choose the fastest pool empirically by measuring the time it takes to pass the ball in the mining program window, as well as by studying the response time to the pool servers by team ping… In some cases, it may not work due to blocking on the pool side to protect against hacker attacks. To check the ping you need in the search bar Windows type cmd and click on the icon that appears:

Then, in the console that appears, type the command ping and the address of the pool server and press enter… For example, for a pool server Coinotron need to dial ping coinotron.com… In this case, it has ping 14 ms, which increases the number of late decisions and reduces the miner’s earnings:

The time it takes for information to reach the pool servers may differ from provider to provider. It depends on which routing tables they are using. Sometimes it is useful to change the provider and get a good ping to the desired sites and pool servers.

The main nuances when choosing the Internet for large industrial farms

When organizing industrial mining, due to its scale, the need for the speed of the Internet used increases. An important element is to ensure the smooth operation of mining farms, so it is imperative to provide a backup communication channel.

With a large number of rigs, it is impossible to use WiFi networks due to the large amount of mutual interference and the limited number of communication channels in the WiFi range. Therefore, on industrial farms, to organize a large local network of rigs and ASIC-ов it is necessary to use a separate gateway server and a large number of professional switches and routers with wired connections.

How much internet is consumed by mining equipment, how to calculate the power

If the volume of traffic provided by the provider is limited, then you need to know how much Internet the farm can use for mining per month.

To find out exactly how much internet is needed for mining on a particular rig, you need to measure its daily traffic consumption per day. If this is not possible, a rough estimate of the traffic consumed can be made. The download of the communication channel can be viewed in the menu of many routers.

For example, a rig of 6 video cards in solo ether mining and simultaneous mining of monero on a processor consumes about 60 megabytes per day. Thus, he needs an average speed of 60×8 / (24x60x60) = 0.006 megabits per second (6 kbps). To ensure more stable operation, it is better to have at least double the speed margin. Therefore, the presence of a stable channel with a speed 12 kbps is more than sufficient for the operation of an average rig.

The speed of even the weakest GPRS mobile Internet of the second generation (up to 100 Kbps) will be sufficient for the operation of a farm of 10 rigs at a distance from the tower of the mobile operator at a distance that provides a stable Internet connection.

Based on the features that characterize the interaction of the rigs with the network, the main requirements for the communication channel for the mining rig are as follows:

• stability and round-the-clock work;
• minimum ping to pool servers, preferably up to 10-15 ms;
• speed from 10 kbps per rig.

When calculating the traffic limit and speed, you need to be sure that the operating system installed on the rig does not exchange service traffic Microsoft or someone else… It is best to block all traffic except for the pool servers and miner’s network addresses used for monitoring.

If you plan to use remote administration, then the requirements for Internet speed will increase. To use programs such as UltraVNC, it is desirable to provide a connection with a speed of at least 128 kbps, and for normal operation you need more 1 mbit / s.

Based on the small amount of information transmitted during mining, when choosing a provider, you need to focus not on what Internet speed it can provide for the user, but on what ping it can provide.

If it is a large ISP using cable connections to large backbones, it will have very good ping times. If it is a reseller of the Internet obtained through many relay communication channelsthen his the ping will be much worse.

The largest ping will be when using satellite Internet due to the long signal path between ground stations and the satellite. In remote areas, there may simply be no communication channels with low ping. In this case, you can think about mining coins with large time intervals between blocks, which are not so sensitive to the delay in decisions made, for example, instead of ether (block time – 15 seconds), mine Monero (2 minutes).

The relevance of a 4G modem for mining at home

4G Internet provides excellent speed, sufficient not only for the operation of mining farms, but also for monitoring farms using a remote screen. When using 4G Internet, you do not have to worry about the work of farms and watch movies online, because the speed of the Internet of GPRS and EDGE networks with snail speeds is sufficient for the operation of mining farms, the main thing is to ensure good ping.

Tests were carried out with receivers of the type:

Selecting network equipment and setting it up

When building a local home network with several rigs, it is advisable to choose a router that will be able to cope with the fact that some computers will download torrents, watch movies online, as well as round-the-clock Internet traffic to mining pools will go through it.

To reduce ping, it is better to connect rigs over wires, not over Wi-Fi. When distributing the Internet over WiFi, it is better to use the 5GHz band, which is less congested and contains less interference.

Farm network cables

Fast and reliable Internet can only be provided by using high-quality routers, switches, network cables and connectors. When laying networks, it is better to use optical or coaxial cables or twisted pair 5E or 6th category with factory-crimped connectors from reliable companies.

What Wi-Fi routers and adapters are needed for mining

When choosing routers and switches, you need to focus on reliable manufacturers, for example, Zyxel, Asus.

It is better to choose routers with the ability to reserve a communication channel, as well as with the ability to monitor the traffic of each consumer. This will help you understand which of the rigs is behaving abnormally and more accurately configure the local network.

If it is not possible to provide fiber-optic or wired access to an Internet provider, then to access the network better to install 3 / 4G modem (or separate smartphone) with a remote antenna. Using a directional and high mounted antenna will provide more reliable communications and reduce ping.

Automatic restart of the farm when disconnected from the Internet, do I need a Watchdog?

From experience, internet outages are not the main reason for rig crashes. Watchdogs are more needed when using low-quality hardware, which can lead to freezing of rigs. In this case, you need to use hardware models, since the software Watchdog won’t work when the system hangs.

To reserve a communication channel on a router, you can use the cheapest smartphone that works as an access point when the main Internet channel is lost, or 3G modem.

Some switches and routers may freeze periodically, so it is theoretically possible automate their periodic reboot or turn off-turn on using a relaypower managers. In practice, when using network equipment of even average quality, its reliability is quite enough to ensure reliable communication of rigs with pools.

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