Beginner’s guide: Migrating to the advanced mining monitoring and management system

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minerstat

9 min readOct 7, 2020

Recently, a lot of our new users and customers are migrating from more simple mining solutions to minerstat. With the increased set of questions that beginners usually face with such an advanced system, we decided to summarize the answers in this blog post. We understand that the interface can be overwhelming with so many features, but once you get used to it, you will see that it offers almost anything that comes up to your mind.

We have divided this article into different sections that will summarize everything you need to know if you are migrating from some other system. This guide will help you get started and understand better how minerstat works, while other advanced things will be left to you to explore on your own. We have a large collection of YouTube videos that can help you with that.

1️⃣ Migrating from NiceHash Miner, CudoMiner, and similar

Customers that migrate from these systems to minerstat usually select Windows Node. However, there are also some that are feeling more adventurous and want to try Linux based mining OS.

Main differences

While minerstat is mostly intended for professional use, you can still use it even if you are a beginner. The main differences between the aforementioned systems and minerstat are:

Payouts and rewards: Minerstat does not work as a pool or entity that pays you for mining. With minerstat, you are mining to a pool with your own wallet and the pool is the one that pays you the rewards. The payout schedules and fees are visible on the pool’s official website. As a mining monitoring and management system, we do offer the balance monitoring on the pools and wallets, so you can see when the pool paid you and rewards came to your wallet. To start, you will at least need your own ETH wallet as ETH is the default option when you start.
Payment method: We don’t take a percentage of your mining as a fee for our services. There is a free account available with limited features for 1 worker. For 1 worker or more with full features, the price is fixed: 2$ per month per worker. There are possible discounts available for subscriptions longer than 1 month and occasional promotional discounts that can be used alongside duration discounts. 1 worker can hold up to 16 GPUs or can be an ASIC machine.
Coins & Mining clients: Because we are a monitoring and management system, we support a wide range of mining clients and algorithms for mining. With hundreds of coins and dozens of mining clients, you can mine almost anything you like - you can also mine on NiceHash.
Plug and forget: While minerstat does offer an option to just plug your rig and forget about it, let it run and mine, we offer so many different features that you probably won’t do just that. The minimum that you will be interested in is adjusting your dashboard to fit your needs and make your own collection of benchmarks, which you will export to the mining calculator. Then when overclocking will be set and stable, you might explore diagnostic and improve your mining rig with its suggestions. After a few weeks, you might get interested in profit switch, and then another mining story will begin. And even after all that, the majority of features will be still left unexplored.
Mixed rigs: We officially don’t support mixed AMD and Nvidia rigs. You might get it to work, but the support for it is limited and the system won’t always work as expected.

Migrating to Windows Node

If you are migrating to Windows and you are using your PC for mining, let us tell you right away that you will probably have issues with the firewall and Windows Defender. We advise against mining on a personal computer as personal computers hold personal information and a lot of mining clients are closed-source, so no one can know what is being run in the background.

However, if you decide to do it, you will need to make sure that your Windows system is prepared for mining. You can start by reading this article. If your rig is already prepared for Windows mining, then you shouldn’t face any issues along the way.

Here is what you need to know:

Windows Node needs some dependencies installed, so we suggest you use the installer instead of the portable version.
Whitelist Windows Node software before you run it or disable firewall and Windows Defender. We don’t load all mining clients at once, so if you start with some new mining client and firewall or Windows Defender delete it, the mining won’t work.
Don’t set up mining to BTC pool or mining to BTC wallet as BTC cannot be mined with GPUs anymore. The same goes for all other coins that are being mined with ASICs these days. Watch this video to see how you can set up mining of a custom coin.
Check your balance on the pool you are mining to since the pool is the one that will send you the rewards once you reach the payout threshold. Not all pools are suitable for all mining setups. If you are using only one GPU, you need to select a pool that allows mining with lower difficulty.
Remote overclocking (from minerstat dashboard) is possible only with MSI Afterburner 4.5, local overclocking (outside minerstat dashboard) can be used with any software you like.

Migrating to msOS - Linux based mining OS

Migrating from Windows system to Linux is a challenge for most of the users. Mainly because the overclocking settings you used on Windows almost never work on Linux and you need to find the good spots once again. Dedicated mining OS also doesn’t use a graphical interface, which we are used to from Windows rigs, but they cause fewer problems (such as Windows’ updates) and everything can be solved faster once you get used to it.

Here is what you need to know:

Make sure to use a proper USB (at least 16GB and USB 3.0) or SSD. Don’t use some small 2.0 USB just for “testing” as you won’t be able to test the system properly.
Make sure that you have disabled internal GPU and set PCIe to GEN 2 in your BIOS.
Make sure to follow the installation steps carefully and set everything exactly as it says. The access key and the worker’s name are case sensitive.
Don’t set up mining to BTC pool or mining to BTC wallet as BTC cannot be mined with GPUs anymore. The same goes for all other coins that are being mined with ASICs these days. Watch this video to see how you can set up mining of a custom coin.
Don’t use the same overclocking settings as on Windows. Overclock slowly and if you crash your GPU, remove the overclocking profile and reboot to reset everything to default.

📣 Help and support: If you at any step need help, we are almost always available on our Discord.

2️⃣ Migrating from direct Windows mining or from Windows management software

Usually, when customers migrate from direct Windows mining to minerstat, they select the Windows Node software as they are already used to managing their overclocking settings on the Windows. However, a lot of Windows miners that are mining directly on a mining client, also want to try msOS, so we have again divided this section into two parts.

Main differences

The main differences between direct mining and using minerstat as a management and monitoring system are:

Mining clients: We are updating mining clients regularly and keeping them up to date so you don’t need to worry about downloading and replacing them with a new version. We also offer a wide collection of mining clients so you can test all of them.
Alerts and triggers: You can set up various different alerts that you can get to your e-mail, mobile phone, or Telegram. With triggers, you can set up automated actions (such as reboot or restart) on certain events (such as hashrate drop or high temperature).
Build-in mining calculator: We show you estimated earnings so you won’t have to check mining calculator pages all the time. Additionally, you can set up balance monitoring on your favorite pools and wallets.
Profit switch: You can set up customized profit switch between any coins and multi pools you like.
Analytics: We offer a wide range of different statistics from global, to worker-wise, and group-wise. Additionally, there are logs available and diagnostic that can help you keep your account healthy.
Others: There are many other features available. You can browse all of them on our features page.

Migrating to Windows Node

When migrating to Windows Node keep in mind:

Mining clients location: We won’t use the same folder for mining clients that you used till now. The clients are located in the minerstat folder. Make sure to use the location that works and your Windows system is able to access.
Mining client configuration: If it happens that you used the same mining client and you don’t get the same results with Windows Node, make sure to check your mining client’s configuration. You can use advanced config and even copy/paste the config you used with direct mining to make sure that all parameters are included in your new mining setup.
Remote overclocking (from minerstat dashboard) is possible only with MSI Afterburner 4.5, local overclocking (outside minerstat dashboard) can be used with any software you like.

Migrating to msOS - Linux based mining OS

When migrating from Windows to Linux based mining OS, there are many things you need to look out for. These are two different systems and they don’t work under the same conditions and same settings.

Here is what you need to know:

Make sure to use a proper USB (at least 16GB and USB 3.0) or SSD. Don’t use some small 2.0 USB just for “testing” as you won’t be able to test the system properly.
Make sure that you have disabled internal GPU and set PCIe to GEN 2 in your BIOS.
Don’t use the same overclocking settings as on Windows. Overclock slowly and if you crash your GPU, remove the overclocking profile and reboot to reset everything to default.

📣 Help and support: If you at any step need help, we are almost always available on our Discord.

3️⃣ Migrating from any other Linux OS

The last section is for those that are migrating from different Linux based mining OS to minerstat mining OS.

The reasons for migration can be different, but in the cores, all mining OS systems are very similar. The differences show in the drivers and kernels the OS version uses, different features that we offer, the interface, and different approaches to different configurations.

Here is where minerstat is different than other Linux distros:

Mining configuration: With minerstat, you set up a mining configuration for each worker. If you want to change the configuration for multiple workers in bulk, you can do that by including more workers to the target of the update or by applying a config template to multiple selected workers.
Config templates: On minerstat, config templates are just that - templates. If you change a template, you will need to load it again to the worker’s configuration as the config template isn’t locked to the worker.
Mixed rigs: We don’t support mixed rigs. You might get it to work, but functionalities will be limited.
Triggers: We have a unique way of setting up remote watchdogs that are very flexible and can be set up for various different situations. There is also an option to fire a webhook.
Profit switch: Aside from other distros, we are the only ones that offer a native profit switch that is fully customizable from the dashboard and can be used with many coins and multi pools.
Build-in mining calculator: Aside from other distros, we are the only ones that offer a build-in mining calculator for hundreds of coins and multi-pools.
Payments: We offer crypto payment methods via CoinGate (which supports 50+ cryptocurrencies), PayPal (which supports payments via PayPal and credit cards), and wire-transfer (for larger customers). All of our customers get an official invoice. We don’t offer bulk discounts, but we do offer upgrade and duration discounts, occasional promotional discounts, and loyalty discounts.

📣 Help and support: If you at any step need help, we are almost always available on our Discord.