This is my Odroid N2 Node (akin to a RPI4) with 2TB disk :
For the record I have another 2 nodes running on a single RPI4 (4GB Ram) with a 6TB and 2TB disks that are only 3 months in - all of this is connected a UPS that reports a total of 27W of power consumption.
I post this for interest - I make no comments on whether its worth doing other than to say I do it for interest more than anything 
Cheers
Andrew
27watts… not sure that would be enough juice to spin 1 of my rack server’s fans…
currently pulling 300 watts… but working on reducing it some more… my plan is a bit more along the lines of my server can pull whatever amount of disks i hook up to it… so won’t have to upgrade that for a long long time…
not sure i would go this route if i was given the choice… but i’ve sort of committed to this route… and looks like it’s just about breaking even about now…
one could also make the argument that older nodes earnings data is tainted by surge payouts…
which the newer nodes cannot count nor shouldn’t count on.
In my country amazon is not the cheapest source of electronics, and also very unreliable with delivery, maybe you could look for other options, like local auctions or platforms?
On amazon I only consider buying stuff that is not accessible otherwise like sata controlers, that on my local electronics networks are pretty nonexistent.
Also I had few delivery problems with amazon delivery to foreign country, what can be costly on its own.
It was just an example. The problem is the country, not the source. Import duties here are greater than 100%, billed on both the goods and shipment.
I don’t really think for me looking from another side that is an issue. I’ve been with storj since V2. Yes the surge payouts make a difference but what i’m seeing now i’m taking as being more like the norm. I think some of the issue is people expect a larger payout from the beginning, not allowing the size of their node to grow and looking forward if they want their income to grow re investing some of their income into drives extra. I will agree the earnings estimator is a good way out but Storj has always insisted you use existing hardware. I can see someone getting upset if they invested hundreds of £ or $ in drives etc to see an roi into years but that’s not been the case for me.
i’ve spent way to much and i’m willing to spend more… it’s an investment… inititally tested it out in v2 and then left because i had to figure out some server stuff and wanted to do a proper setup, kinda thought v2 was shutdown at that time… then kinda forgot about it for a spell… xD
a bit sad that i’ve had my server running for couple years but only recently put it on storj… didn’t really have the drives in it i wanted and my setup was crap… and i have some other production stuff i plan to do with the server… so long project and long time learning or relearning a ton of admin related stuff…
i think i’m easy past 1k $ if not closing on two all things considered… but made some mistakes which was kinda costly… if i could i would resell the server and buy another one… but it’s corroded due to improper temperature and humidity control… but atleast it’s a cheap old state of the art server 10 years ago xD
currently my goal is to cover my expenses of running it… hardware costs is a bit tricky to factor into it… because one doesn’t really know how long it lasts, nor is it always fully used…
happy with the numbers i’m seeing thus far … going on my 5th month with this node on v3
also bought like 60tb worth of hdd’s xD so yeah it adds up…
ofc if one wanted to make money one would start with a RPI and a single big hdd… thats bound to make a nice ROI
Cold storage is not where SNO’s make money from. They loose money.
This is why I am hesitant to expand my HDD capacity at this time, due to very little download traffic requirement.
I think repair and Audit traffic should be charged at $20 / TB, same as normal egress.
How is that a response to my comment where I clearly outline I’m making a profit on it? Don’t just make baseless statements, back them up. Storj isn’t cold storage. A good chunk of income comes from egress. But the cold storage + unavoidable repair brings in pretty decent compensation to begin with if you’re worried the egress traffic won’t stick around. If you lose money, it’s because you have a setup that isn’t energy efficient enough. I have a NAS that pulls 100W when all HDD’s are actively used. But it was always on anyway and it pulls 55W during idle. Even if we assume it was 100% idle if it wasn’t used for Storj, Storj uses a total of 45W. That negligible compared to the income. I never spent a cent of my own money on storage or hardware. So this is pure profit.
As a fairly reliable guideline you can expect on average to make $2.50 per TB used per month based on storage + egress (incl repair). Sometimes it will be a bit higher, sometimes a bit lower. If you can’t make that work, it’s not for you.
Edit: I see you’ve edited your response. When I typed this it only said.
Cold storage is $1.5 / TB via StorJ. There is a lot of “storage” used but it’s 95% just cold storage at present Ie. there is very little download “egress” required at present which is why SNO’s in this thread are posting comments that they’re not happy with $10~ per month etc…
They are expecting much higher download’s on the network.
Yes, that’s a problem in expectations. Like I said, you can expect about $2.50 per TB on average, so that means only $1 per TB stored on egress, which matches the 5% you mentioned. The SNOs complaining went into it with the wrong expectations. (Which is not their fault btw)
That said, that $2.50 per TB can still easily be profitable. It has been for me.
Storj just started with production a few months ago. They are pulling customers to the platform now and once a certain amount of customer data is reached, I am sure traffic will also increase.
Many people will use it for back ups only, but as Tardigrade can be used to build all kind of services, I am pretty sure it will also be used as backend storage for apps, maybe a CDN or what else… Then we might see a lot more traffic.
Are your nodes full? if the answer is yes, are you still getting the same amount of egress?
I have a relative new node ( fully vetted ) and i’ve been expanding the storage a little bit at a time ( 100 200 gb each time ) and i can see that once the ingress stops because the space is full, the egress also stops considerably.
see here for example in this month
can you see the pattern?.
So my fear is that once the i can no longer expand the node i would only earn for the storage space, and that is definitely not worth it.
But to me that’s why storj is a waiting game. Start slow increase node, increase node again and then eventually the money you’ve made will pay for the extra drives which in turn make more money. I appreciate that growth is not a given but its also not in the companies interest to sit back and not take new customers on . Just sit back let it roll in 
I also see this pattern.
See ya dude, good luck. I’m always looking to see what’s next on the crypto storage space perhaps checking other projects and see what works for you or seeing that some are not as good as the others 
I’ve got $160 waiting not sure it’s quite worth the exit yet after getting to this stage plus I’m getting 50% back next month so still got an incentive to stick around for a bit.
Hey @mgonzalezm,
you might see some of this bevahior due to testing patterns we run from time to time.
In terms of expectations, you should not calculate or plan with any given amount as the load is subject to change from day to day, minute to minute.
@stefanbenten, Should our earnings in the future take into account test data being a stable source of SNO revenue?
Do not invest in anything with purpose only for Storj, use only the hardware which will be online anyway, then you will be in profit in any case.
