Questions about Mining Facility Setup and Staffing

Hey folks, I’m considering starting a hosting facility since I can get electricity super cheap (1 cent per KWH). Right now, I’ve got about 2MW ready to go, and I might be able to get more later. The power comes straight from the grid, and I’ve got an 800m² hangar close to the transformer plus a 3000m² secured outdoor space. What do you think is the better route? Should I go for a few "ready-to-use" mining containers, or would it be smarter to convert the hangar into a mining operation and run the miners inside it? Just to give you an idea, 2MW can handle roughly 650 S19 miners. How many staff members do you think I’d need for basic hosting with 650 ASICs? Lastly, what kind of SaaS or apps do mining facilities use to let clients monitor their miners? Thanks a lot for your thoughts, L

I think the hangar is enough as long as the space is sealed and if you know how to filter the air in and hot air out with proper ventilation. About staff I don't think you need many staff but I think 3 or 5 staff is enough. About the app or tools to monitor them awesomeminer is known tool but there is a free one from Bitmain from this link below - Antminer Monitor and Management tools

2mw x .8 = 1.6 megawatts so 3k watts x 500 = 1.5megawatts so you may be able to run 500-550 not 650 the s19 exhausts 500+ cfm. so 500 x 500 = 250,000 cfm this means you need 30 of these https://kn5.ada.myftpupload.com/36sf8n370-shutter-fan/ along with a way to let air in. All rough numbers but kind of what you may need for what you want. https://www.zoro.com/hessaire-36-shutter-fan-8860-cfm-36sf8n370/i/G003071042/? 30 x 700 = 21000 for exhaust metal filters for intake help https://www.cartergoods.com  gold merv 8 washable you will need a lot of them for intake. maybe 60 of them. so 60 x 60 = 3600 duct work will be needed. a lot of cabling is needed. a lot of shelf maybe 15 sets of them. they need to carry weight well. https://www.webstaurantstore.com/regency-18-x-60-x-80-nsf-chrome-mobile-wire-shelving-starter-kit-with-5-shelves/460C1860KM75.html these carry 600 pounds that is 20 pieces of gear per shelf so 25- 30 sets 30 x 220 = 6600 so   6600 = shelf   3600 = filter 21000 = fan power cables are complex a lot of ways to set gear up with cables  but  500 of them  will cost pdus will cost I run 60-100 units of gear we have spent a lot setting up a warehouse . you may want to go the container route.

The staff issue is actually a big one. You will find it difficult to find trustworthy people to run the mining facility. Mining is all about generating money, so most people have few qualms about getting a hold of some of that ... One simple example (that I've seen) is the staff redirecting some of the miners to their own mining accounts. Another is using the power with their own miners. Another is staff getting (illegal) kickbacks from ViaBTC to have miners on ViaBTC. Another is staff (unnecessarily) given access to the pool mining accounts and fudging things there. Generally you need to lock down the network in your facility and limit access both ways - to the miner and from the miner. Of course you also need the usual firewall stopping all remote access to miners. You also need a mining account that gives different owner vs staff level access to the mining data and account. There are of course various ways to handle this.

No. 80% of rating is the typical load de-rating used to ensure adequate reserve/safety margin and it should be applied to all electrical sources for gear that is ran 24x7. That includes not only transformers but also distribution panels, wiring and fuses/circuit breakers.

24/7/365 power use means you have to derate the power by a factor of .8 this is to prevent wires from melting. So if he has 2000 kwatts or 2 megawatts in transformer rating x 80% gives the  proper safety factor of 1600 kwatts or 1.6 mw so 1600/3 = 533 s19 units doing 3 kwatts each. As for proper staffing a lot depends on the op and his or her knowledge of mining. 500 units  can be done on 2 routers  each with 1 pc and 250 miners.  this means 2 internet lines.  which is a decent idea for redundancy. 500 x 100 = 50ph hash or 50000th hash 50000 x .071= 3550 usd a day. as for fear of viabtc and referral misuse,  here is my viabtc referral https://www.viabtc.com/signup?refer=680499 simply join viabtc with that referral and I get a piece of  the fees viabtc is collecting.  you the miner do not pay extra. so obviously this means by working with 1 outsider you have a record of your miners since the outsider gets the hash rate number and th referral fee. so at no cost to you you get a free check on your hashrate by some one you trust. it does not have to be my referral . So if he opens an account with 250 miners. doing 25ph from 1 router he can glance at his viabtc stats on his account and he can check with the person that has his referral to see if it matches. To be honest. this gear needs very little hands on work. depending on filters and your dirty air or clean air. Maybe a 60 to 120 day clean out schedule . 500 machines at 10 minutes a machine is 5000 minutes of work. that is 80-90 hours every 2-4 months. 10 minutes to check that gear is running say 4 times a day. is 40 minutes a day. 1200 minutes = 20 hours then trouble shooting the bad gear. maybe 1 day a month = 8 so 100 hours a month of work is about right. Of course access to a good repair guy = needed fuzzy beat me to it as I wanted to address the fraud issue.

I was not referring to referrals. ViaBTC was giving (illegal) kickbacks.

oh did not know that. thanks for info.

How the hell is a referral illegal kano you need to lay off that pipe. Pretty much every major pool gives some incentive to get others to signup. Oh wait american express gives illegal kickbacks when you refer someone to signup!

Not so sure how those kickbacks are done that kano refers to. Back to setting up a mw mine. you need at least 2 large transformers. say 1mw each https://www.larsonelectronics.com/product/283719/1-mva-pad-mount-transformer-12000v-delta-primary-480y-277-wye-n-secondary-knan-doe-efficiency-rated they are 187000 each btw you need them for the containers and or an in-house mine. So lets say we do not count that for a miner in the warehouse or the containers. the ware house will need large breaker panels. maybe 4 1000 amp panels doing 480 volts https://www.ebay.com/itm/374381242913 these are 20k each or 80k you then need to break down to sub-panels. and from the sub panels you can do pdu's and short cables or outlets and long cables. translation is serious money to do the warehouse correctly. and time to get parts. or buy something like this https://shop.bitmain.com/product/detail?pid=1845021123118285350583K2a0P505EF cost 110k get 3 of them. and under stock them and hopefully cheaper faster and some redundancy . If I had the money to do this I would got that route. how cheap is the power you have?

I specifically said I was not talking about referrals. Try reading next time ...

To run a 2MW you are going to need a lot of money, the infrastructure alone will need at least 150-200k per megawatt, and you will need to hire a professional to set up the network security aspect of the farm. As for the permanent staff, you will need at least 2 trusted folks to take care of the farm, they will need to have a general knowledge about electricity, IT and know how to use screwdrivers. If you don't have the time to manage the farm, you will also need to hire someone for that task as well, whoever person you hire to work at the farm will only change a bad PSU, replace a couple of miners' fans, change the filters and that's it, but when a breaker is down, or one large exhaust fan is broken, they will need to report that to the manager, the manager needs to call someone to handle that. You can save up on the cost if you would build everything yourself, but I tell you this based on personal experience, once you go past 100-200kw you are going to have a rough time dealing with airflow/heat, and you will understand after it's too late that the initial design of your farm was actually wrong, and you will need to rebuild many things, so just take a short cut and buy the ready to install mining containers even if they were 2x more expensive than setting up your own. alternatively, you can just sell your power to someone who has enough money, experience, and staff to run the farm, you can probably sell it for 3 cents and make 30k a month doing exactly nothing.

Sorry let me rephrase that "How is a kickback" also known as a referral usually illegal? These days general rule of thumb is 300k per mw to be on the safe side and hope it costs less for the buildout.

A Referral isn't a kickback. Must be some language issue I guess. Try google - you might learn something.

Not sure about legality, but when you bring clients to them you can get some % off the clients' hashrate, they will just charge higher fees to the ones you bring. Still happening.

They don't charge higher fees if you refer someone. What are you talking about??? I have referred people to viabtc and let them talk to account reps who get them lower fees. Talking sub 1% fees...

Kickbacks are not referrals. Kickbacks are private 'under-the-table' payments. A prime example was one of the eastern-European hosting farms that unknown to the actual owners of the hardware, flashed all Bitmain miners to be hosted with them to use 1 of the DevFee 3rd-party firmware's out there. Yes, how the DevFee is set and how much it is is up to the folks that modified the firmware and yes they do 'volume discount' deals with farms using their wares. They are of course privately negotiated deals but it is still just normal business practice. Problem with the above is that the hosting site made no mention of it to their customers. Folks only found out after the hosting company closed and folks that elected to have their hardware sent back to them or sent elsewhere discovered the miners had been flashed to non-oem firmware. Referrals are fully public promotional marketing. Along with the volume discounts for hosting sites there can also be direct payment of a percentages of the DevFees collected back to hosting sites. Again, fine - as long as the folks who own the hardware are told about the 3rd party FW option and can say yes or no to it. Being paid for flashing en masse miners sent to a company w/o knowledge or consent of their owners - that is illegal kickback.

It is all individual. You can get a deal if you want to, but all costs are passed to miners. Your referrals got lower fees, that's great! But someone else out there is getting much higher fees. It is all individual.

well this was wrong ,but was the host the villain or the host and the pool. the pool may not know that the host was diverting without permission from the gear owner. definitely a sleazily action by the host.

Do not build a hangar, this may be a mistake. If you talk to investors, they will ask what you will do if electricity prices change or mining is banned. The container can be quickly taken away and installed in another territory.