<p>I'm speculating here, because I'm not going to test anything out.</p>

<ol>
<li>The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOPS" rel="nofollow">IOPS</a> would like shoot through the roof. The potentially large amount of writes and reads will likely affect disk life, especially if the disk is an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive" rel="nofollow">SSD</a>. It would generate excess heat. A magnetic disk would also generate constant vibration. Heat can be controlled easier than GPU or CPU heat because there's less of it, and vibration can be dampened using rubber mounts. <strong>The largest risk is simply drive failure due to above average activity.</strong></li>
<li>The GPU would likely be idle. The CPU would only be necessary to drive the hardware operations.</li>
<li>I think it may be difficult to get a 3 TB drive for that new gaming rig, because all of the miners would be trying to pack as much disk space into a device as possible. </li>
<li>I don't know enough about the manufacturing process to hypothesize accurately. </li>
<li>I could see a lot of need for drive recycling. HDDs burn out a lot quicker and take up a lot more waste weight than CPUs and GPUs.</li>
</ol>

<p>What's interesting about the proof-of-storage-space concept is that it can really take advantage of unused space on consumer devices. I know I've got a 500 GB hard drive in my work computer that has never seen more than 50 GB on it. Amalgamate that across a corporate network, and there's probably PB of space available! I could see malicious types taking advantage of this in malware pretty easily, too: high CPU or GPU usage causes lots of heat and terrible performance, while high HDD usage can just make a program take a few seconds longer to start up.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-03-29T00:45:33.310Z
2013-03-29T00:45:33.310Z
Colin Dean
<p>ShelbyMooreIII is promoting AnonyMint and/or AnonyCash as a concept* cryptocurrency based on a disk-space intensive algorithm. Some details are given here: <a href="http://anonymint.org/#Proof-of-Work_Designs" rel="nofollow">http://anonymint.org/#Proof-of-Work_Designs</a></p>

<p>What would be the positive or negative impact of this kind of software on:</p>

<ol>
<li>The disk you're running it on</li>
<li>The CPU/GPU of the PC</li>
<li>The HDD market</li>
<li>The environmental effects of increased disk manufacture (I'm assuming here that such a currency would cause an increase in production)</li>
<li>Anything else substantially affected</li>
</ol>

<p>*I don't know what stage of development AnonyMint is at.</p>

<alternatives><storage-footprint>
What would be the technical, and wider, implications of a cryptocurrency that used proof-of-disk-space?
Highly Irregular
# What would be the technical, and wider, implications of a cryptocurrency that used proof-of-disk-space?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2013-03-28)

ShelbyMooreIII is promoting AnonyMint and/or AnonyCash as a concept\* cryptocurrency based on a disk-space intensive algorithm. Some details are given here: <http://anonymint.org/#Proof-of-Work_Designs>

What would be the positive or negative impact of this kind of software on:

1. The disk you're running it on
2. The CPU/GPU of the PC
3. The HDD market
4. The environmental effects of increased disk manufacture (I'm assuming here that such a currency would cause an increase in production)
5. Anything else substantially affected

\*I don't know what stage of development AnonyMint is at.

**Tags:** alternatives, storage-footprint


---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_1 on 2013-03-29. Score: 1

I'm speculating here, because I'm not going to test anything out.

1. The [IOPS](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IOPS) would like shoot through the roof. The potentially large amount of writes and reads will likely affect disk life, especially if the disk is an [SSD](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid-state_drive). It would generate excess heat. A magnetic disk would also generate constant vibration. Heat can be controlled easier than GPU or CPU heat because there's less of it, and vibration can be dampened using rubber mounts. **The largest risk is simply drive failure due to above average activity.**
2. The GPU would likely be idle. The CPU would only be necessary to drive the hardware operations.
3. I think it may be difficult to get a 3 TB drive for that new gaming rig, because all of the miners would be trying to pack as much disk space into a device as possible.
4. I don't know enough about the manufacturing process to hypothesize accurately.
5. I could see a lot of need for drive recycling. HDDs burn out a lot quicker and take up a lot more waste weight than CPUs and GPUs.

What's interesting about the proof-of-storage-space concept is that it can really take advantage of unused space on consumer devices. I know I've got a 500 GB hard drive in my work computer that has never seen more than 50 GB on it. Amalgamate that across a corporate network, and there's probably PB of space available! I could see malicious types taking advantage of this in malware pretty easily, too: high CPU or GPU usage causes lots of heat and terrible performance, while high HDD usage can just make a program take a few seconds longer to start up.


---

