Efficient Sampling
Efficient Sampling is Irys's method for reading data from packed partitions and generating proofs. It complements the Matrix Packing used to prepare storage partitions.
This approach offers several benefits:
- Cost-effective mining.
- Low barriers to entry.
- Increased miner profitability.
- Lower fees for users.
Efficient Sampling allows the use of economical HDD hardware, maximizing the use of drive capacity. This makes mining accessible to a wider range of participants, lowering barriers to entry. By making efficient use of resources, miners experience increased profitability. Additionally, users benefit from lower fees due to reduced mining costs and benefit from a diverse network of miners.
Efficient Sampling can sample a 16 TB partition faster than Random Sampling which is plagued by overlapping reads and inefficient coverage.
Efficient Sampling ensures complete coverage without overlaps, allowing for faster and more efficient sampling of large drives.
Here’s how it works:
| Step | Description |
|---|---|
| 1 | Divides the partition into 200MB ranges. |
| 2 | Creates a list of "unsampled ranges". |
| 3 | Randomly selects a range from the unsampled list for mining. |
| 4 | Moves the sampled range to a "sampled ranges" list. |
| 5 | Repeats until all ranges are sampled. |
| 6 | Swaps the sampled and unsampled lists to restart the process. |