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by snvzz 817 days ago
Not a fan of the coverage of ECC in misunderstandings section.

>In any way you can run ZFS and Btrfs without using ECC memory, it's not a requirement.

Should be:

>You can run ZFS and Btrfs without using ECC memory, it is definitely possible, but you shouldn't run ANY filesystem without ECC memory.

It cannot be stressed enough. Friends don't let friends run computers without ECC memory.
2 comments
ggm 817 days ago
Almost all small form factor NAS I am aware of which are affordable are non-ECC.

Almost all homebrew kits ship boards which are non-ECC.

You have to explicitly configure ECC as an option, eg when ordering a NUC.

If you want to make this true, you've got to confront the problem that people go to generic, cheap SBC platforms to run their home NAS, and they are almost never ECC.

My work ZFS is ECC.

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snvzz 817 days ago
>Almost all small form factor NAS I am aware of which are affordable are non-ECC.

>Almost all homebrew kits ship boards which are non-ECC.

>You have to explicitly configure ECC as an option, eg when ordering a NUC.

Wow. Placing such products in the market without any prominent warnings (or worse, making promises of reliability) should be considered criminal negligence.

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ggm 817 days ago
Well. Need to qualify that. They may have things like on-die ecc but they aren't exposing state. So, it's down to trust.

https://forums.raspberrypi.com/viewtopic.php?t=358921 for instance

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_factor 817 days ago
Anecdotal, but ever since running my workstation with >64GB ram, I’ve had stretches of unexplained behavior. Switching to ECC for the past 3yrs, these random errors no longer surface. It’s a 24/7 only reboot for patching machine.

I thought it was just a luxury feel good investment, but the longer I run without errors, the more real the problem seems.

The larger the memory capacity, the higher the probability of bit flips, so that likely plays a role.

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