How to build your own Filecoin (IPFS) mining machine?

Since FIlecoin released its white paper, everyone has started to pay attention to this Token that is closely related to IPFS. The fact that the ICO raised 250 million US dollars in a short period of time shows the popularity of Filecoin and the expectations for IPFS. Today, the editor only made some thoughts from the perspective of Filecoin mining. Welcome to discuss, and share relevant technical talents and resources to create an open community like IPFS.

"Mining" originated from Bitcoin. In the early days, we could even "mine" Bitcoin through home computers. However, with the increase in computing power and difficulty coefficient, this method can no longer meet our needs. A large number of mining machine research and development departments and manufacturers have emerged, forming a complete mining industry chain. You can become every link in this chain.

Mining Machine

Here we say that mining machine manufacturers are at the top of the mining chain (in fact, the top is definitely the issuers of various projects), but today we are only talking about mining, and here we are comparing Bitcoin and Ethereum mining, because in the mining chain, if you don’t even have the most basic mining machine, how can you talk about mining? However, mining machines are not as complicated as everyone thinks. It is true that large manufacturers can develop mining machines very well, remove any unnecessary components in the computer, and then achieve a good ratio of various hardware, which can provide the maximum computing power under the same conditions. Therefore, in the early days of Filecoin, everyone seemed to have seen the early Bitcoin, and actively participated in the ranks of Filecoin miners, hoping to become a member of the earliest link. Everyone had an idea that the earlier they entered, the more they could mine. This idea would be certain, just like the early drivers of Didi, everyone could make a big bucket, because there would be a lot of rewards, and Filecoin would also make a lot of reward policies at that time. Everyone was so enthusiastic that many mining machines would advertise (no derogatory meaning here) the relationship between their mining machines and IPFS. In my opinion, at least more than half of the people who are currently booking mining machines on the whitelist are for the purpose of mining Filecoin (I won’t elaborate here). So in the early days of mining machines, in fact, everyone’s ordinary computers could mine Filecoin, but we all bought and snapped up mining machines with the mentality that the mining machines would benefit us the more. Those who have technology in this area of ​​mining machines must first consider entering this link.

harddisk

Having said the mining machine, we have to talk about the hardware - hard disk! This is completely proportional to the amount of Filecoin you produce, so the size and number of hard disks determine your output value. There are many hard disks on the market now (Western Digital "but divided into several types, specific functions and other evaluations", Seagate, Toshiba, etc.), so can we do something in this link? The answer is yes. From the perspective of mining, you need to stock up a large number of hard disks, so many people will ask: Why do you want to stock up on a big currency like hard disks? This question can be seen from the stocks of AMD and Nvidia and the quantity and price of graphics cards in computer malls, but the premise is that you are very optimistic about the popular blockchain storage. If you think that blockchain storage cannot become as popular as Bitcoin graphics card mining, then there is actually no need to stock up, the worst case scenario is that the price is a little higher! When the price is high, another group of miners will develop. They believe in Filecoin wholeheartedly, regardless of whether it goes up or down, just like the people who mined Bitcoin in the past (in fact, many people gave up or got off the train halfway, this is the difference between hoarding coins and speculating on short-term waves). I think most old leeks don’t care about the price of coins every day. They only think about one thing: to make their own coins more and more. There are too many chicken soups for speculating on coins. In summary, buy, forget, and profit! Back to the point, this group of people will find hard disk companies to become dealers, because in this way you will get the goods, and they are relatively cheap hard disks, but the premise is that you are big enough, and others can’t give you the wholesaler price for five hard disks! If you can become a dealer, your hard disk is guaranteed, and you can attack and defend, sell and use it. Just look at the number of people and search volume in most IPFS groups to know how many people there are! This is similar to the concept of you becoming a mining machine dealer. Hard disks are very important for mining Filecoin.

bandwidth

Dedicated line, this mainly requires uplink speed. If you use your home 100M optical broadband, you can mine, just like you can mine with your home computer, but the output is not high, because your storage time will be proportional to your income. Here we mainly focus on small and medium-sized mining plants. The current broadband dedicated line is very expensive, but some places can get very cheap dedicated lines, which is your advantage, but cheap places do not meet the premise of large population and high frequency of use, which will also affect the income. Therefore, those first-tier cities that can still get preferential dedicated lines, you can boldly open your arms and embrace Filecoin, just like everyone is mining Bitcoin in Sichuan, Inner Mongolia and other places to the end, reducing costs! Therefore, seeking resource sharing is a very feasible way. You have a preferential dedicated line, I have a preferential hard drive, I have a venue, and everyone can form a low-cost and high-output mining plant together. The editor has recently received many friends with cooperation intentions and resources. The editor helps everyone integrate resources. I won’t talk much here. There are also issues with dedicated lines, such as how much bandwidth you need for 10T. Such evaluations are unknown now.

site

The site issue is that Filecoin mining is best built in places with high frequency of use and large population flow, which means that the sites in these places will definitely be very expensive. Here are several solutions: 1. Residential buildings (Advantages: cheap electricity, cheap site Disadvantages: noise problem "sound insulation materials will cause temperature rise", whether dedicated lines can be laid) 2. Office buildings (In fact, there are many first-tier cities that cannot rent out office buildings, and they are very cheap. Disadvantages: various costs are rising, electricity bills, rent) 3. Factory buildings (industrial electricity, also a cost issue) On the site issue, the editor has not been able to come up with a good solution. Everyone can express their opinions and we can learn and discuss from each other!

Summarize

With these three elements, you can mine with a mining machine (computer is also OK) + hard disk + dedicated line . You just need to wait for the official release of Filecoin. In fact, there are many mining machine manufacturers recently, using the popularity of IPFS to hype up their products. I have always said that the official program has not yet been released. How can they claim their abilities so loudly? ? Maybe they can really mine it, but the output is not high. It’s just that we should be skeptical about these links (this is also the reason why I often become a troublemaker when playing Werewolf)!

In fact, these three factors are simple to say, but because the official has not released anything, there are too many uncertainties here, such as whether the hard drives you stockpiled are suitable for mining, whether the configuration of the mining machine you bought is the most reasonable, etc.!

In fact, there are many links in this process. You can contact the mining machine manufacturers, become their distributors, etc. You can make money. In fact, a large number of IPFS WeChat groups are doing very well, such as hardware evaluation and mining machine production. These are all things we can learn from. Only when everyone has different thinking and views can we assemble a "perfect" mining machine chain!

Author: Zhihu user Link: https://www.zhihu.com/question/264885361/answer/302650096
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