Chia plotting is both CPU and IO intensive. You can run several plots in parallel until you hit a bottleneck. Plotting in parallel will increase the processing time, but also the throughput. The goal is to maximize the number of plots per day. There’s a sweet spot after which adding more processes will decrease the throughput. Therefore, it’s important not to exceed this limit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The following bash script is a primitive mechanism to maintain the optimal number of plotting processes running. It starts a new processes after a previous completes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
#!\/usr\/bin\/bash\n\nMAX=$1\n\nif [ -z \"$MAX\" ]\nthen\n echo MAX not set\n exit 1\nfi\n\nMEMORY=28000\nBASE=\/home\/x\/chia-blockchain\nBIN=$BASE\/venv\/bin\nTEMP1=\/big1\nTEMP2=\/big1\/s1\nDESTINATION='\/media\/x\/My Book Duo\/chia-farms'\nKEY=1111111111\nTHREADS=2\n\ncurrent=`ps -ef | grep chia | grep plots | grep create | wc -l`\n\nif [ \"$current\" -ge \"$MAX\" ]; then\n exit\nfi\n\nmemory_per_plot=$((MEMORY\/MAX))\n\ncd $BASE\n. .\/activate\n\n$BIN\/python $BIN\/chia plots create -k32 -n1 -t$TEMP1 -2$TEMP2 -d\"$DESTINATION\" -b$memory_per_plot -u128 -r$THREADS -a$KEY<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nThe command line argument is the maximum number of plot processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The script is meant to be scheduled in crontab:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
25,55 * * * * \/home\/x\/chia-blockchain\/create_plot 4 >> \/home\/x\/chia-blockchain\/create_plot.log 2>&1<\/code><\/pre>\n\n\n\nYou’d need to customize the following variables:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
MEMORY: total mebibytes allocated for plotting. The script calculates the memory per process to avoid swapping.
BASE: Chia software installation directory
TEMP1, TEMP2: temporary directories for plotting, optimally on NVMe SSDs. It requires ~300GB per plotting process.
DESTINATION: farming directory, usually on cheap storage
KEY: wallet key
THREADS: the number of threads per plotting process<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can also use this script to find out the optimal degree of parallelism for your system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After scheduling the script and attaching enough cheap storage for farming you can go away on vacation and hopefully find some coins when you get back \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chia plotting is both CPU and IO intensive. You can run several plots in parallel until you hit a bottleneck. Plotting in parallel will increase the processing time, but also the throughput. The goal is to maximize the number of… Continue Reading