data tank's strongest feature is it's density.
DataTank's strongest features are that (a) it costs less, (b) deploys faster, (c) can be reused, (d) reduces hardware to chips on boards, (e) allows a lot of room to grow (current condenser designs are close to 500kW per tank at 35C, they will do even better in cold Washington state).
Density is important, but only plays a secondary role. It also goes beyond the device level that you see on the surface (ie. smaller space required). At many places space is not a problem, but a 10 ft electrical cable costs 10 times less than a 100 ft cable to keep it simple and make an example = cost savings again.
More important for the job on hand is this in my opinion (_in addition_ to the cost savings on the infrastructure/cooling):
One single DataTank container is around 576 SP30 from Spondoolies Tech. I have done this example a few days ago already in a previous post.
576 2U enclosures cost a lot of money
576 power supplies cost money
17,280 (576x30) heatsinks cost money
4608 fans cost money
Etc
All that needs to be installed, quality controlled (several times), packaged and shipped from China to Israel to Washington State.
It needs to be packaged, shipped and quality controlled multiple times in fact (at the manufacturer, at Spondoolies when it comes in, at Spondoolies when it goes out).
So how many days does it take the Israeli factory to build, assemble and prep 576 (15 palettes? maybe more) of hardware? Quite a while. Building it in China and shipping to WA still no big difference, somebody has to assembly all that metal.
How much faster and cheaper can FedEx (we are in a rush in Bitcoin mining) deliver 1 palette with boards compared to 15 palettes? I wouldn't be surprised if the shipping cost alone could buy a new car (I will look into this). You also ship twice, once from China, then from Israel. Shipping cost is probably a double digit percentage on these systems, I wouldn't be surprised if it's more than a quarter!
And how long does it take on the other side at the mine to unpack all that, get it ready for installation, and distribute it in 144 racks? (assuming you can install 4 in a rack, that's 10kW/rack)
144 racks from China, that need to come in in a few shipping containers, also cost $40k to $70k, depending on what quality you want (I assume he cheapest). How long to _assemble_ 144 racks? 1 person can probably assemble a few of them in a day. You'll need call a lot of friends if you want them up in a week.
If you run a complete TCO comparison (total cost of ownership), you will find out that you saved yourself a lot of money already at the beginning, and that you pay much less operating costs, and that you are online a lot earlier than otherwise.
In the case of DataTank, the deployment of these SP30/Rockerbox boards takes literally a single person a half day. And the moment the chips are soldered to the boards they can leave the factory towards the mine. And because of the efficient cooling, they will actually consume less electricity (reduced leak currents). That's not even related to the missing fans. As a result, you can either save on OpEx, or crank them more (higher hashrate). As Bitcoin miner you probably want the latter, especially with cheap electricity cost and no cooling overhead.
Of course some critics may say you could also reinvent the wheel, design the ASICS in a totally different way, higher some scientists and show the world (Bitcoiners and everyone else) how to do it. But that is what we have here and today, and I truly believe it's the future. We have been doing this for almost 3 years. We are doing it because it makes total sense. And it's not an idea, it exists.
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Of course the 3 months _initial_ build time is long, but the DataTank plan is long term. After that it only takes a few hours and everything is re-used. Again and again. And don't forget that after the initial phase, the production pipeline is setup and we can produce 1 or a hand full or even more per week.
In the western world, from the idea of deploying 1MW to actually doing it there is a difference of a few months and a lot of work. Case in point: lead time of a transformer is 8-12 weeks minimum, installation time will take another 1-2 weeks, commissioning by the power company another week. From start to finish a lot of money changes hands.
That's why cloud mining is so attractive nowadays to the small miner (I am not talking about the ripoff sites). You save all the trouble. But even the cloud mining companies still need to run their hardware somewhere, and these are the people hat actual deploy real hardware and make the experience I am point out above.