Quote from: fpgaminer on June 01, 2011, 05:39:42 PM

While we're on the subject, perhaps someone can help me understand one aspect of solo mining I haven't had the chance to personally explore. If your 95% probability solo mining time is >2 weeks, for example, will the difficulty changes ultimately have an adverse effect on your income? Statistics was never my strong suit.

Income% in coins is your hash rate as a percentage of the global hash rate. I% = mH/gH. If you are kicking out 2GH/s and the global hash rate is 4TH/s you are .05% of the total network hash rate. You should earn .05% of the total coins generated over a given time period. (2,628,000/year * .05% = 1,314coins/year)

Difficulty is just a different way to measure the global hash rate. As gH/s goes up so does the difficulty and I% goes down.

A pools percentage is poolHash / globalHash (pH/gH). Your poolIncome% = mH / pH.

If your 2GH/s is part of a 1TH/s pool you are 0.2% of the pool
The pool is 25% of the global hash rate (4TH/s).
The pool would earn 25% of all generated coins and you would get .2% of that (.05%) less any pool overhead charges.

over time solo mining will win out unless you have a 0% cost pool. with solo mining you could just have a very long dry spell.

If you are running multiple solo miners you are better off pooling them so they don't generate duplicate work.