Hashrate
Also called: hash rate, hashing power, hash power
Hashrate is the number of hash calculations a miner or a network performs every second. It is the basic measure of mining power.
Hashrate, or hash rate, measures how many times per second a machine computes the hash function of its algorithm. Each calculation is an attempt to find a valid block. We talk about the hashrate of a single machine or of a whole farm, but also about the total hashrate of a network such as Bitcoin, which adds up every miner in the world.
Mining is a game of probabilities. The higher your hashrate compared with the network's, the better your chances of finding blocks, or the bigger your share in a pool. Your share of the rewards therefore depends on your hashrate relative to the total hashrate, not on your hashrate alone. When the network grows, the same machine gets a smaller slice of the pie.
On a product page, hashrate is given as a nominal value with a tolerance of a few percent. It can only be compared between machines running the same algorithm: 200 TH/s on SHA-256 and 9 GH/s on Scrypt do not measure the same work. The figure shown in the interface also varies with temperature, operating mode and the condition of the hashboards. Rely on the average over several hours rather than the instantaneous value.
Our hashrate converter switches from one unit to another in a single click. Our HappyMining firmware, installed free of charge on machines bought from us, helps you find the right balance between hashrate and power consumption.