Best Safe Node hardware

woah US $31.77 - 63.55 / Piece

mini stick with atom 64bit processor, 2gb ram, installed with win or ubuntu

put a tf card in there for more storage or hook it to an external drive (only has usb 2 though)

would make a neat thing to give away at meet ups/conferences if you can get them for $30 or less…

Need something with SATAe

Hi all, I would like to start farming but Im not a software developer and have more a finance background. What do I need? My old laptop is damaged so I need to buy a new laptop anyway. What do you recommend if I want to build a farming rig?

It’s all speculation right now as a vaulted network hasn’t been released yet. There are a lot of options presented in this very thread. Also do a search for “farming hardware” and you’ll get some results, some are outdated but may still apply. There are a lot of factors to consider for an “optimal dedicated setup” whereas if you are going to be a casual farmer (non-dedicated)) then I believe any old/new laptop (/and in the future mobile phones) will suffice. :slightly_smiling:

Dedicated rig or machine for everyday use?

If the latter, just buy a machine that serves your everyday purpose - then your overheads are near zero and all farming is profit even at low margins.

If dedicated, see the posts above for ideas. Personally I think low power / always on is good, and keep your costs down. It is doubtful whether pro farming will be profitable, so spending a lot is risky IMO.

You don’t need lots of CPU power, but a balanced solution. Responsiveness and throughput are important. Trouble is, we can’t know in advance where the sweet spots will be, and they will change as the network changes.

One of the questions giving me a headache right now is SSD over HDD. I have a PC laying about that I will set to work when farming goes live. It has good specs my only concern is the HDD that is nearing the end of its lifespan.
I have already upgraded my internet connection to increase my upload speed to 12mb and now I want a good quality hard drive.
Seems to me those 2 are what matter? …correct me if I am wrong!
Anyway I digress, are the faster read and write speeds of an SSD not nullified by the internet connection speeds?

Honestly, SSD is a bad choice for safenet only if you’re not running 24/7. If you do plan to keep your PC running 24/7, then SSD will be better. You’re going be swapping with data, and therefore making SSD more prone to fail. SSD is fantastic for OS, programs, and long term data storage. But it fails miserably when you want to rewrite/overwrite data, and also has short shelf life. It isn’t build for that kind of propose. HDD is a better option for that, and it has better shelf life.

Your connection speed is more important than read/write speeds on your ssd/hdd.

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I do plan to leave it on permanently. I am confused are you saying if I leave it on 24/7 SSD is better? even though you say its prone to failure.

I believe with SSD fragmentation is less of an issue. should that be a consideration?

are you saying if I leave it on 24/7 SSD is better? even though you say its prone to failure.

Yup. But expect to lose your SSD within a year or two. SSD is exactly like those usb flash drive, and those flash drive dies within a year or so. As time progress, SSD technology will get better at long term self life.

For me personally, HHD WD black is the best option. High performance write, and long storage. That thing is a beast! Been using it for 2 years and counting!

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Is that your experience? What make model?

I have only had one SSD (Samsung 256GB) and it is still going after several years, at least 6 I’d guess. I’m now on my second because I wanted a bigger one, and no problems yet (again Samsung).

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I had one that crashed on my within a year. That was samsung. I forgot which model but it was an quite old model.

I have another one, and it is still running fine in the last two years. I do have fears that it will die between now and next year. I am being caution on ssd because it is the same form as usb flash drives which therefore more prone to failure. Flashdrives has died on me every 6 months or so.

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I can attest to Western Digital Green 1TB drives being 100% reliable over…I’m guessing 5 years now.

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When discussing HDD MTBF etc the BackBlaze annual reviews are always very useful.

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I am cautious about using WD Green when it comes to farming. They were getting very short lifespans due to intellipark when using Linux. My concern is regular gets from the network will have a similiar effect.

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Yeah, I’m using them on Windows and not really asking much of them. I’m probably going to rent a server to play around with farming due to uplink/ bandwidth constraints…so not sure what I’ll end up with.

I heard green is pretty bad at performance, and lifespan. But glad to hear yours is still running for 5 years.

All my greens are healthy and some I have since greens came out. None have dies, but not all are in constant use. Greens are not for constant read/write use.

On the other hand I had a seagate 1.5TB die yesterday, and doubt it saw 2 years of actual use. Seagate in the last 10 years have been very poor at surviving.

I cannot remember the last WD to die.

And I have been using WD drives since the very early eighties (14" dirves) odd interface then 8" then 5" then 3.5" through the decades with changing interfaces ( ST506/IDE/SATA )

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Another possibility; Pine A64. There’s a 2gb version for $29.

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I have my one on order and hoping to get it soon

@neo when is it due and do you know if they are on target? Also how are they are getting on with OS support - there were some questions over that I think!

Please post updates about it - it’ll be a nice option to include.