How can I edit nvOC and then use that as my nvOC baseline --- so I can flash it onto X hard drives and all I have to change is the worker name ?
After setting up the baseline nvOC installation, you could simply create a new image of the partitions (or entire disk), and use it to flash new disks. For that, you would need to boot from a different drive, as the disk you're going to image shouldn't be mounted. I personally like GParted Live and PartedMagic, as they are loaded with several utilities for that, but you could just use the "dd" utility that comes with every modern Linux basic installation.
So: boot GParted Live from USB stick; have the disk you are going to create the image from ready; have a disk where to save the image file ready; use a partition/disk cloning utility (or "dd") to create the image; use that image to flash new disks. Note that depending on your hard drive sizes, ideally you should create images with only the used space (some utilities allow that), as it doesn't make much sense to create a (say) 250 GB image with only 10 GB used.
Finally, I don't think you'd need to change anything on the newly-flashed nvOC disks, as it automatically adjusts the worker name based on the IP address (but of course you can), and the Xorg reconfiguration should be done automatically too.
previously the worker name did not work properly for me when it was set on the auto adjust setting, did anyone else have that problem and could that have been a conflict with my router/switch?
thank you for the quick reply, is it possible to do this on windows?
Is there any benefit to periodically putting a freshly flashed USB in as opposed to one thats been mining for months?
For Windows the process would be similar: let's say you have your notebook with Win10. Plug the source drive in one USB port, the destination drive in another USB port, and run a disk cloning utility. That same disk cloning utility should allow you to create an image file to save on your notebook itself, to flash future drives. Check this website for some disk cloning utilities for Windows:
http://lifehacker.com/5839753/the-best-disk-cloning-app-for-windows
Now for your other questions:
1) Never had this kind of problem. My setup uses DHCP but with static IP assignments configured in my router, so there's a consistent hostname.
2) You PMed me with this question, but I'll reply here for others: if I understood, you wanted to know if it's possible to clone the nvOC installation before booting it at least once. I don't think it's a good idea, as there's that process to copy 1bash between partitions, adjusting them etc. (not sure if it still applies to v019). So just to be sure, boot it once, make sure it's mining correctly, then shutdown, and clone this installation.
3) I don't think you need to replace your USB drives unless they are giving read/write errors. After flashing and setting up everything, there aren't many disk writes that could wear out the drive, as far as I know.
Or... just occured me: if you are sure your 1bash settings are correct and you don't need to change anything else, simply copy this file over to your next installations.
You will need to flash the nvOC img file anyways, would take about the same amount of time as cloning.This whole process I mentioned is worth it only if you customize other things after booting nvOC, not just 1bash.