How to Farm Chia: Guide to Farming XCH Tokens with a Hard Drive

Chia Network recently entered the cryptocurrency market and quickly piqued the interest of many miners and investors. There are several reasons for this: First, the Chia blockchain works with the new Proof-of-Space-and-Time (PoST) protocol, which means that proof of place and a task duration are required for crypto cultivation.

Second, according to the makers, Chia (XCH) is an environmentally friendly coin and is not born from mining. Instead, it is bred and the protocol uses little energy to generate new coins.

Chia Network President and COO Gene Hoffman says project founder Bram Cohen wants to bring environmental friendliness to the crypto world.

In the case of Chia, storage space with HDD or SSD can replace hash power. Krzysztof Pietrzak, who is also working on the PoST protocol, said Chia’s original model was flawed. Hoffmann added:

“It starts with Bram presenting potential solutions and Krzysztof proving them wrong until Bram proposes a solution that turns out to be true even though Krzysztof proves it mathematically wrong.”

What is the Chia Network?

The key point and difference of chia farming is that participants don’t have to use GPUs and powerful processors like in Bitcoin mining. Split can be cultivated by HDD or SSD. This is an attractive proposition for those who cannot afford the latest and greatest in equipment. Hoffmann explains:

“Right from the start, it was designed to be safer than PoW and much more decentralized, while consuming 1,000 to 10,000 times less electricity.”

To cultivate chia, you can start with a PC or laptop of any kind. All you need is a processor with a clock rate of 1.5 GHz, 2 GB RAM and a 1 TB SSD or HDD.

Next, users need to download the “Split Blockchain” client from the project’s official website or directly from GitHub. Then create a wallet, save the private key and you can start the farming process by clicking the “Create Plot” button. Farming a block brings a reward of 64 chia tokens. And the speed of farming depends on the amount of disk space used.

It’s worth noting that currently only individual users can grow chia. Every single farmer generates blocks – that is, there is no need to join a pool to receive coins. According to the developers, this makes for a better decentralized Chia network. However, the project team is currently working on the creation of an official pool protocol, which will be published shortly. Regarding the upcoming release, Hoffman revealed:

“Farmers cannot cheat. Pools can only cheat if they don’t pay the agreed amount, and growers can leave the pool after 30 minutes if they think they have been cheated. In addition, unlike most other pooled cryptocurrencies, pools do not create blocks, but each individual farmer creates blocks. That said, it’s much more decentralized. In addition, the Chia blockchain is the largest blockchain of all time, measured by the number of public nodes. “

If you don’t have the hardware and just want to buy chia, it can be done through some exchanges. You should keep in mind that to buy chia you must first buy a stablecoin (like USDT) or bitcoin and then exchange it for chia.

Gene Hoffman – President and COO Chia Network

How to build a chia farm

A very common question is how to build a chia farm and how to choose the best parts for a farm rig to maximize profit. Fortunately, the process is pretty straightforward and is similar to assembling a dedicated home computer that you can do yourself.

REMOVEprocessor

Any processor with 4 cores – such as Intel’s Core i3, Core i5 or Core i7 or AMD equivalents – is suitable for chia mining. The recommended choice would be the Intel Core i5-11400 or Core i5-10400, which are available for around $ 150 to $ 170. For even better productivity, choose a processor with integrated graphics, as a slot can be used to connect additional memory.

warehouse

The main hardware required to farm Chia tokens is a storage drive, either SSD or HDD, that supports the SATA III interface. Users can only use SSD, but it is better to use a combination of SSD and HDD at the same time because SSD speeds up the graphics process while HDD stores graphics better.

In general, you’ll need at least 300GB of space, but the more the better. For example, 2TB is enough to create 6 graphics at the same time, while 10 graphics require a larger capacity SSD or even several such devices. It is better to use a high-speed SSD that works through the M.2 slot. Cultivators will have to look for models with several terabytes of write capacity (TBW), and it is better to have some external hard drives as these are easier to replace.

In terms of price, there is a wide range of prices for different types of HDD and SDD on the market and they are inexpensive. For example, a Western Digital Purple 1 TB HDD typically costs around $ 50. When choosing an SSD, you should keep in mind that at least 15% of the hard disk space must be free to increase durability and ensure the proper function of the drive. This should eliminate most of the downshifting problems during operation.

Hoffman also emphasizes that buyers of equipment specifically designed for growing chia often look for used equipment:

“For those buying specialty chia farming equipment, recycled drives or used storage are the first choice because they are cheaper and they are suitable for chia farming because they don’t store data. When people rushed to buy specialized hardware, they chose high capacity hard drives because they use less power per TB and have higher storage density. There are growers who use SATA, SAS, USB drives and even combine everything with one another. “

Motherboard

The motherboard should preferably support SATA III and USB 3.0 ports. The same applies to PCI-e ports, must be version 3.0 or higher. If there are more ports, more drives will be attached to the system. The board must have a network controller with a speed of 1,000 Mbit / s and two network ports are an advantage. The faster the internet connection, the better. Unlimited wired internet connection of 100Mbps or more is the best option. There is also a large selection of motherboards in different price ranges. For example, the SuperMicro X9DR3_i-LN4F + is widely available for around $ 115.

power supply

Since SSDs and HDDs consume less power, up to 500 watts of power is sufficient. Of course, a 750 watt box can also be used, but this is currently in short supply. However, it is important to choose a power supply with multiple SATA, Mole, and PCI ports to connect additional drives. Such power supplies cost no more than $ 40.

R.A.M.

The minimum amount of memory required to cultivate chia is 2 GB, but it is recommended that you use 4-8 GB of RAM. However, this ultimately made no difference in agricultural productivity.

shelf

Cultivation racks for multiple drives can be mounted independently of each other in the mainframe housing. It is sufficient to simply remove the GPU card (if the processor has an integrated video chip) and insert as many drives with SATA III ports into the corresponding connectors on the board.

The future of the chia network

Chia Network is a relatively new venture, but its popularity has resulted in a serious shortage of HDDs and SDDs in some parts of the world. The two largest hard drive manufacturers Western Digital and Seagate are reporting increasing demand for their products. This can definitely lead to an increase in the cost of XCH farming.

Another problem is how easily drives fail when farming chia. At the end of May, the German cloud hosting provider Hetzner banned users from farming chia on their servers. The company claims that the load on their devices has increased significantly and the hard drive is failing due to the chia growing.

One report even claims that growing chia can damage a 512 GB SSD in less than 2 months and a 1 TB hard drive in less than 3 months. Under normal conditions a trip can take up to 5 years.

According to the developers at Chia Network, however, the solution to the problem is being worked on. They say that the bulk of the Chia community uses used SSDs that were purchased in data centers and that the company works with many of the leading storage providers to develop products specifically for Chia.

Even if a user chooses to farm chia and accept regular drive changes, it all depends on the price of the chia coin itself to determine how profitable the endeavor can be. After the Mainnet (Mainnet) launched in early May, the price of XCH soared to around $ 1,600, but dropped to $ 230 in late June.

XCH / USD | Source: Coinecko

However, in late May, Chia Network was valued at half a billion US dollars and raised $ 61 million in an earlier funding round.

Minh Anh

According to Cointelegraph

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