Well the reason for the conversion to these "ASIC's" is because their Hashing power versus Power consumption is far more efficient then a GPU. Lets not forget their $ per Mh/s is far cheaper then a GPU as well. Its an Arms Race so it doesn't necessarily mean that you will see your ROI quickly. Mining is fun, so Im not discouraging you to invest and learn something new!
As far as the technical details involved with getting your 12 USB array up and hashing. If you google search and/or search the forum you will find a plethora of viable information. I happen to be on BTCguilds website so here is a quick link to their guide. https://www.btcguild.com//index.php?page=support§ion=blockerupter
Is it Plug & Play, well the answer is Yes & No
It really depends on your technical foundation and what you consider to be a hurdle &/or what operating system you run. Relatively speaking they are fairly plug and play in Windows. You create an account at a Mining pool, download your mining software. https://github.com/luke-jr/bfgminer or https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer works well. Install the drivers.http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx Run the miner. Copy & paste your commands & tweak.
Utilizing the Raspberry Pi's in an option and you see guys using these because they have alot less power consumption opposed to running a desktop PC all day. I personally do not have a Raspberry Pi but from what I read, it seems simple but there a few more steps to get one setup both on the software side (ie:flashing firmware, connectivity etc ) and on the hardware side of things (ie: are you buying a pre-build Raspberry Pi or are you building one) comparing to straight up Windows PC. Cheers I hope that helps!
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=255582.0
As far as the technical details involved with getting your 12 USB array up and hashing. If you google search and/or search the forum you will find a plethora of viable information. I happen to be on BTCguilds website so here is a quick link to their guide. https://www.btcguild.com//index.php?page=support§ion=blockerupter
Is it Plug & Play, well the answer is Yes & No
It really depends on your technical foundation and what you consider to be a hurdle &/or what operating system you run. Relatively speaking they are fairly plug and play in Windows. You create an account at a Mining pool, download your mining software. https://github.com/luke-jr/bfgminer or https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer works well. Install the drivers.http://www.silabs.com/products/mcu/Pages/USBtoUARTBridgeVCPDrivers.aspx Run the miner. Copy & paste your commands & tweak. Utilizing the Raspberry Pi's in an option and you see guys using these because they have alot less power consumption opposed to running a desktop PC all day. I personally do not have a Raspberry Pi but from what I read, it seems simple but there a few more steps to get one setup both on the software side (ie:flashing firmware, connectivity etc ) and on the hardware side of things (ie: are you buying a pre-build Raspberry Pi or are you building one) comparing to straight up Windows PC. Cheers I hope that helps!
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=255582.0