Adventures in Chia

I'm currently up to 825 plots taking an estimated 81.6TB of space. When it cools down a bit I will create more plots. I mentioned in my last post that I had put some larger HDD into the storage server. This week I got some extra memory for it. I tried 2 x 32GB memory sticks, the idea being to bump it to 128GB of memory, but they wouldn't work so I settled for 4 x 16GB sticks which takes it up to 64GB. Its actually 62.7GB available because the iGPU reserves memory for graphics, not that it needs it. The memory upgrade seems to have sped it up a fair bit because asking for a directory listing is noticeably faster. Previously it would do a lot of disk access which I can hear for a few seconds before displaying the directory, now its almost instant. Specs In addtion to the below I also have an external disk enclosure connected via USB 3.0. It holds 4 x 8TB WD Red  HDD. Case: Fractal Design Meshify 2 Power Supply: Seasonic 550 watt modular Motherboard: ...

I got around to installing the 16TB drives in the Chia storage server. The 4 x 8TB drives that were in the storage server were swapped out. I had 3 pools originally as: pool1 - 5 x 16TB drives in raidz pool2 - 4 x 8TB drives in raidz pool3 - 4 x 8TB drives in raidz It took about 3 days to move the files off pool3 onto another server and then copy them back. I also spent a day moving a lot of files to pool3 to free up space on pool1. This is what we have now: pool1 - 5 x 16TB drives in raidz pool2 - 4 x 8TB drives in raidz pool3 - 5 x 16TB drives in raidz NAME    SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP    HEALTH  ALTROOT pool1  72.8T  5.38T  67.4T        -         -     0%     7%  1.00x    ONLINE  - pool2  29.1T  26.3T...

I have 750 plots at the moment taking up 74TiB according to the the chia software. Storage server I purchased a pair of 32GB ECC memory modules to update the storage server. The machine wouldn't boot with them so I went back to using the pair of 16GB memory modules it had before. I purchased some more 16TB hard disks with a view to replacing the 8TB drives that are in the storage server. I am running ZFS and have 3 pools of drives: 5 x 16TB drives in Raidz (approx 32TB usable) 4 x 8TB drives in Raidz in an external enclosure (approx 24TB) 4 x 8TB drives (approx 24TB) The plan is to make a Raidz2 (two drive redundancy) of 10 x 16TB drives. This should yield approx 128TB usable space. The pool in the external enclosure can remain as is. I might upgrade it to larger drives at some point but don't have any plans at the moment. Due to the USB interface they are almost twice as slow as the drives inside the storage server, even though they are the same make and model 8TB drives. The ...

I have 650 plots which are harvesting. Once I sort out storage I'll resume plotting. The 4 x 16TB drives arrived. I could just swap out the 8TB drives that make up pool3 but its best to have an odd number of drives in raidz or raidz3 and an even number for raidz2. I will order another pair of 16TB drives and some SATA power extension cables. The power cables have to come off the power supply which is at the bottom rear of the case, reach to the front and up towards the top. They are just a bit too short to reach the top couple of drive mounts. There have been a few updates to the chia software. As of writing this its up to version 1.2.9. It looks like they are planning on some changes to the wallets as the change logs refer to "a future release".

I've got 600 plots and have stopped generating any more for the moment, so its just harvesting what I have. I ordered some more 16TB drives for the storage server. Currently I have 3 pools of disks in/attached to it: NAME    SIZE  ALLOC   FREE  CKPOINT  EXPANDSZ   FRAG    CAP  DEDUP    HEALTH  ALTROOT pool1  72.8T  26.6T  46.1T        -         -     0%    36%  1.00x    ONLINE  - pool2  29.1T  26.3T  2.82T        -         -     0%    90%  1.00x    ONLINE  - pool3  29.1T  26.2T  2.96T        -         -  ...

I'm still producing plots as I have free disk space. While that is ongoing I have rounded up all my old hard disks. I have repurposed one of my old machines and have it running Darricks Boot and Nuke (DBAN) to wipe the hard disks. I started with the 320GB drives and they're taking around 6 hours to wipe. They were made in 2007 and 2008. I'll be dropping these drives off at an ewaste (electronic waste) facility so they can be recycled. I'll be getting rid of all the 3.5" drives that are less than 4TB. I am still waiting on the drive brackets for the storage server. They were supposed to be in this week but have been delayed again. I saw the QNAP TL-R1200C-RP 12 bay 2U rack mount JBOD for sale. What is unusual about this is most rack mount JBOD's use SAS which means you need a HBA card with external SAS ports in your PC, but this one uses USB 3.2 to connect. The new network switch was supposed to be available "mid-August". The computer shop don't kn...

Still creating plots, at least until I fill up the current storage pool. I have a total of 455 plots taking 45TiB (according to the Chia GUI). Estimated time to win is 6 months. I have two pools of disks, both running under ZFS with raidz (single disk redundancy). The first pool is 5 x 16TB internal to the storage machine, giving approximately 64TB usable space. The second pool is 4 x 8TB in the external disk enclosure, giving approximately 24TB usable space. I've filled the second pool to 90% (or 93% depending on what utility one uses) and now I'm filling the first pool. Its currently 45% full. I am still waiting on drive mounting brackets for the storage machine, the delivery date keeps getting pushed further back. Once they arrive I may try and mount the 8TB drives into the storage machine as its faster than the external enclosure, as well as allowing me to put another 8TB drive in. I would then look at my collection of older drives to go into the external enclosure, althoug...