News Chia Crypto Plotting Can Destroy an SSD in Weeks

[Chung Leong]

I just read in the news about a major ransomware attack on a pipeline operator. No doubt, the hijackers are demanding payments in cryptocurrency. People shouldn't regard crypto merely as an energy-wasting tulip mania. It's way more evil than that. Anyone who mine is in fact helping
criminals evade justice.

 

[ginthegit]

Even more incentive for creation of malware mining this crap. Just great.

I think that is the point. It enables spyware into your system

 

[ginthegit]

I just read in the news about a major ransomware attack on a pipeline operator. No doubt, the hijackers are demanding payments in cryptocurrency. People shouldn't regard crypto merely as an energy-wasting tulip mania. It's way more evil that that. Anyone who mine is in fact helping criminals evade justice.

Totally agreed

 

[jeremyj_83]

hmm I got an unused Intel 750 1.2TB drive wonder how well it would do for a chia drive, I should sell it 😛

That SSD only has a 127TBW endurance. Could probably still make some money off of it though.

 

[jeremyj_83]

You need to replace a consumer-grade SSD every couple of weeks. If you plan on mining Chia long-term, you will be spending $1000+/year replacing cheap SSDs. You are far better off using higher-end SSDs with 20+X the write endurance for 3X the cost per TB.

Going all the way to RAM-disk doesn't make much economic sense though since 512GB of RAM only lets you reliably plot one Chia at a time using $1200+ worth of RAM, a ridiculously expensive motherboard and an equally stupidly expensive CPU while 4x 1TB enterprise-grade SSDs would let you get a lot more Chia plotting throughput out of a Ryzen 5800X or i7-11700k on a far more budget-friendly board.

Just get a refurbished server if you want to run it as a RAM-disk. $4400 gets you a refurbished Dell R720xd with 1.5TB RAM and 12x 600GB 15k disks. Going down to just 1TB RAM and no disks come in at $3000. With that $4400 system you can run 3 plots in RAM and then another 12 on the fastest spinning disk you can get. I would assume that running Chia at the speed of RAM will significantly increase the speed that it takes to run each plot even compared to NVMe SSDs. The added speed of RAM would probably make up the difference in running 3x RAM compared to 4x SSD. Then having the 12x 15k disk would be an added bonus. If you wanted to spend even more $5900 gets your 1.5TB RAM and 12x 960GB SATA SSD.

FYI 4x 960GB Micron 5300 Pro drives, SATA with 1.5 DWPD rating, runs $960 right now. If you wanted the 5300 MAX drives, 3.2 DWPD, that would increase the cost to $1300.

 

[jeremyj_83]

There won't be any changes where HDDs are concerned since enterprise-grade HDDs have been in use in IO-intensive workloads for decades already. Anything that could possibly be thought of to improve drive reliability, speed, density, etc. has either already been done or is already being worked on regardless of Chia.

Expanding on your comment to FPS-fan. With large capacity 3.5" 7200RPM Enterprise Grade HDDs, the 550TBW/year isn't based on what the media itself can handle but is based on the load the actuator can handle. In the last decade I haven't seen the actuator write endurance go up at all, it almost seems to be a mechanical limit and will be interesting to see if they can improve that over time.

 

[InvalidError]

Even more incentive for creation of malware mining this crap. Just great.

Not sure how mining Chia would be workable as malware: creating a Chia plot takes multiple hours, consumes 200+GB of storage space and the final file that you need to store long-term for the block lottery is over 100GB. Most systems don't have TBs worth of unused space, so most infected computers wouldn't be able to store more than 2-3 plots before the owner would notice 300+GB going missing. Uploading the plots to the malware operator is also going to be problematic at over 100GB per finished plot and most people having less than 100Mbps upload speed.

Some people may try it but they are far more likely to earn arrest warrants against them than any money from it.

 

[wr3zzz]

I hope all these Chia speculators' SSD burned. China's Taobao is now full of sellers advertising "Chia SSD" from overseas because 2TB+ SSD are supposedly out of stock among China's major e-tailers and distributors still having inventory are asking huge premium per-byte basis over the 1TB models. All those MSRP 2TB SSD on Amazon are probably going to disappear soon if the Chia bubble doesn't pop. After that the price hikes will spread to all size SSD.

 

[spongiemaster]

I just read in the news about a major ransomware attack on a pipeline operator. No doubt, the hijackers are demanding payments in cryptocurrency. People shouldn't regard crypto merely as an energy-wasting tulip mania. It's way more evil that that. Anyone who mine is in fact helping criminals evade justice.

No doubt. If Dogecoin didn't exist, this attack never would have happened. I can't remember a single example of extortion before cryptocurrency existed. I'm not even sure the word ransomware existed before bitcoin hit the scene.

 

[Phaaze88]

I just read in the news about a major ransomware attack on a pipeline operator. No doubt, the hijackers are demanding payments in cryptocurrency. People shouldn't regard crypto merely as an energy-wasting tulip mania. It's way more evil that that. Anyone who mine is in fact helping criminals evade justice.

It should be telling, that more and more cyberattacks are resorting to demanding payments in cryptocurrency.
Geezus...

Those who are pro-crypto shouldn't be mad at the crypto-haters, but their own pro-crypto groupies who are abusing it and giving it a bad image.

 

[InvalidError]

No doubt. If Dogecoin didn't exist, this attack never would have happened. I can't remember a single example of extortion before cryptocurrency existed. I'm not even sure the word ransomware existed before bitcoin hit the scene.

While ransomware has been around for decades, it definitely has become more common with crypto.

I'd imagine meme coins are a great vehicle for ransoms:
1- slowly buy and mine meme coins while they have next to no value
2- roll out the ransomware and other attacks
3- demand payment in your meme coin of choice to a dedicated crypto wallet
4- sell some of your meme coins to your victim at its panic-buying value
5- delete the destination wallet upon payment confirmation so you don't accidentally create a trail leading back to yourself
6- rinse and repeat until you have sold out your stash

The first times I thought about how to monetize crypto ransoms, I was thinking in terms of laundering the criminally acquired coins. The process is greatly simplified if the criminal is selling coins to its victims and throwing all of the ransom payments away, especially if the criminals establish a history of speculative buy-sells before driving the meme coin value up with the first ransom demands.

Hopefully regulators and investigators around the world are on top of it. This is one more reason I think crypto will eventually get regulated to hell.

 

[g-unit1111]

lol..... sour grape because you miss the boat and couldn't make any money from it....

No sour grapes here. I laugh at the people blowing ridiculous amounts of money on hardware only to turn around and dump it when they don't make the profit they want. Though at the same time I am frustrated that this nonsense is driving up hardware prices to ridiculous levels and affecting other things that people use PCs for, like gaming, because everyone wants to participate in the latest get rich quick scheme.

The amount you spend vs the amount you make, aka return on investment, is completely ridiculous. And few, if any, are the ones who really make a profit in this. For the average user, if you spend $3K on a PC and $1400 on a graphics card, it will take more than a year to break even. The average user, you and I, will not make profit from this and in the long run will actually lose money. It's economics 101.

 

[spongiemaster]

While ransomware has been around for decades, it definitely has become more common with crypto.

I'd imagine meme coins are a great vehicle for ransoms:
1- slowly buy and mine meme coins while they have next to no value
2- roll out the ransomware and other attacks
3- demand payment in your meme coin of choice to a dedicated crypto wallet
4- sell some of your meme coins to your victim at its panic-buying value
5- delete the destination wallet upon payment confirmation so you don't accidentally create a trail leading back to yourself
6- rinse and repeat until you have sold out your stash

The first times I thought about how to monetize crypto ransoms, I was thinking in terms of laundering the criminally acquired coins. The process is greatly simplified if the criminal is selling coins to its victims and throwing all of the ransom payments away, especially if the criminals establish a history of speculative buy-sells before driving the meme coin value up with the first ransom demands.

Hopefully regulators and investigators around the world are on top of it. This is one more reason I think crypto will eventually get regulated to hell.

It's pretty much guaranteed through human history, that as something becomes popular, people try to immorally profit off it. For thousands of years we didn't see a single plane hijacking, then suddenly they shot up in popularity in the 20th century. Coincidence? With exceedingly rare exceptions, the problem is people, not the technology. If we want to eliminate the crimes, the solution is to eliminate all people.

I do agree that regulators need to wake up and start taking cryptocurrency much more seriously. It isn't going away so they need to step in and get on top of things before they get completely out of hand.

 

[Krotow]

I just read in the news about a major ransomware attack on a pipeline operator. No doubt, the hijackers are demanding payments in cryptocurrency. People shouldn't regard crypto merely as an energy-wasting tulip mania. It's way more evil that that. Anyone who mine is in fact helping criminals evade justice.

Correct.

lol..... sour grape because you miss the boat and couldn't make any money from it....

No reason to leap into just another pyramid scheme where owners slurp the cream from top, leaving the rest with nothing and debts. Also when authorities will begin to regulate crypto for real, many wannabe crypto millionaires will suddenly become debtors and convicts.

To make things even more clear, crypto is very bad digital money, because each transaction must be validated online. Real digital money must function like cash where tokens which work like money, are exchanged on place. Because it is very stupid to assume that every place where someone is paying to someone about something, will have online Internet access. In case of communication failure then only barter economy remain. Which I believe is not what majority want to experience IRL.

 

[Makaveli]

That SSD only has a 127TBW endurance. Could probably still make some money off of it though.

219TBW is what its rated for.

 

[carocuore]

Samsung: *nervous sweating*

 

[mattcintosh]

Chia crypto farmers are discovering low endurance consumer SSDs are not tailored for write-intensive workloads.

Chia Crypto Plotting Can Destroy an SSD in Weeks : Read more

What about Flash Cache? These cards have 512GB, most likely designed for heavy read/writes and are dirt cheap?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017UXTADW

 

[USAFRet]

What about Flash Cache? These cards have 512GB, most likely designed for heavy read/writes and are dirt cheap?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017UXTADW

Used, pulled from a server, with NO idea of how much use it has seen.

 

[g-unit1111]

To make things even more clear, crypto is very bad digital money, because each transaction must be validated online. Real digital money must function like cash where tokens which work like money, are exchanged on place. Because it is very stupid to assume that every place where someone is paying to someone about something, will have online Internet access. In case of communication failure then only barter economy remain. Which I believe is not what majority want to experience IRL.

Yeah exactly, it's the 21st century version of fool's good. You'd have to be a fool to think you could actually get rich from it. Otherwise it's just a sitcom style get rich quick scheme.

 

[TJ Hooker]

To make things even more clear, crypto is very bad digital money, because each transaction must be validated online. Real digital money must function like cash where tokens which work like money, are exchanged on place. Because it is very stupid to assume that every place where someone is paying to someone about something, will have online Internet access. In case of communication failure then only barter economy remain. Which I believe is not what majority want to experience IRL.

I'm not sure how you could have digital currency/transactions that wouldn't have some sort of network requirement. And I don't know about you, but I basically don't use cash anymore (nor does anyone else I know), so nearly all my transactions already require network connectivity.

Also, with LEO constellations rolling out now and in the near future, I don't think it's implausible that within the next decade you could expect to have access to some sort of internet connection just about anywhere on earth.

 

[TJ Hooker]

I've always read that SSDs don't like being used for temp files. So much so I disable everything temp-file or caching related on my own SSDs, even to the point that I use a separate platter drive specifically for all temp files--at the cost of caching speed over drive life. I can understand that higher priced SSDs might handle caching better than cheaper ones, but even if I'd bought a premium drive, I still think I'd disable temp and caching in exchange for a good night's sleep.

This is tangential, but I wanted to say that, unless you use your PC for some special, write-heavy use cases, you probably don't have to be worried about your SSD endurance being worn out. I'm assuming you were talking about endurance when you said "SSDs don't like being used for temp files", and I'm guessing by "temp files" you're referring to pagefile and/or Windows system restore snapshots or similar.

 

[Krotow]

I'm not sure how you could have digital currency/transactions that wouldn't have some sort of network requirement. And I don't know about you, but I basically don't use cash anymore (nor does anyone else I know), so nearly all my transactions already require network connectivity.

Also, with LEO constellations rolling out now and in the near future, I don't think it's implausible that within the next decade you could expect to have access to some sort of internet connection just about anywhere on earth.

You can use online payments only because communications around you are working. Try to purchase something during blackout or storm which damaged comm lines around.

LEO satellites stil require adequate communication equipment with powerful enough transmitter and antenna. Too big to put into smartphone. Just physics and nothing else.

 

[USAFRet]

This is tangential, but I wanted to say that, unless you use your PC for some special, write-heavy use cases, you probably don't have to be worried about your SSD endurance being worn out. I'm assuming you were talking about endurance when you said "SSDs don't like being used for temp files", and I'm guessing by "temp files" you're referring to pagefile and/or Windows system restore snapshots or similar.

Indeed.
Many newer systems are coming, as delivered, with SSD only.

Even older systems are being changed to SSD only. Like mine, specs below.
Except for the 50TB in the NAS, all my house systems are SSD only.
In normal use, worrying about 'temp files' and 'write endurance' is a waste of brain power.

Chia mining is not normal use...😉

 

[TJ Hooker]

You can use online payments only because communications around you are working. Try to purchase something during blackout or storm which damaged comm lines around.

LEO satellites stil require adequate communication equipment with powerful enough transmitter and antenna. Too big to put into smartphone. Just physics and nothing else.

Cellphone data generally still works during a blackout. But my point was that most people are already OK with having a network requirement for most of their transactions, so the same requirement existing for crypto (or any other digital currency) doesn't seem like a deal breaker.

Regarding satellites and phones, you are aware that satphones have been a thing for decades? And no, physics does not prevent a regular cellphone from communicating directly with a satellite https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/25/ubiquitilink-advance-means-every-phone-is-now-a-satellite-phone/

But even with something like Starlink where you still need a ground station, it lowers the cost/difficulty of getting internet access such that it will hopefully be feasible even for small remote communities. So sure, I guess you wouldn't necessarily have a signal to conduct your transaction if you're in the middle of some unpopulated nowhere. But once LEO constellations are widespread it should at least be feasible to get a signal anywhere people actually live.

 

[Krotow]

Someone earlier mentioned Chia as option for inferior SSD manufacturers to push their crap away. It is already happening.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/adata-tries-to-ride-the-chia-wave-while-it-can

Yeah exactly, it's the 21st century version of fool's good. You'd have to be a fool to think you could actually get rich from it. Otherwise it's just a sitcom style get rich quick scheme.

In places where cryptoming started regular blackouts, authorities already started to round up and shut down cryptomining estates. In US towns and a bit more lawless places like Abhazia. Yes, China too.