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ECC vs. Non-ECC RAM or: How often did your bits flip?
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ECC vs. Non-ECC RAM or: How often did your bits flip?

AmitzAmitz Member
edited October 2015 in General

Howdy folks,

when it comes to dedicated servers, I always was one of those who preferred the so-called "enterprise hardware". You know, enterprise HDs, ECC RAM, all those server-grade stuff.

Especially ECC RAM was always important to me. Losing data because of some bit that flipped out of the sudden was a nightmare. Now I wonder: How often does that even happen in real life? I mean - my personal computer does not have ECC RAM, still there is a lot of valuable data (for me) on it. Can someone knowledgeable shed a light on this for me or provide links to recent studies about this? Would be absolutely marvelous - thanks in advance!

Kind regards
-A

Thanked by 2iKocka alaningus
ECC vs. Non-ECC RAM
  1. My favorite type of RAM for servers is...77 votes
    1. ECC RAM
      36.36%
    2. Non-ECC RAM
        3.90%
    3. I do not care. Whatever comes with the server.
      59.74%

Comments

  • Interesting read and obviously a big + for ECC, thank you!

    Thanked by 1netomx
  • ClouviderClouvider Member, Patron Provider

    Rule of thumb. If you care about quality you use ECC.

    Thanked by 1Amitz
  • AmitzAmitz Member
    edited October 2015

    @Clouvider said:
    Rule of thumb. If you care about quality you use ECC.

    Sure thing. I know the rule of thumb, but was looking for studies/numbers to have some beef in hand.

    Thanked by 1Clouvider
  • WilliamWilliam Member
    edited October 2015

    I had a few non-ECC stick fails with unintended consequences (maybe 1-2% of all my RAM over the last 5 years) - Lost a ZFS array this way.

    But don't be fooled - i also had LOTS of ECC RAM fail (more than non-ECC), mostly with correction (parity) working, but sometimes it did not and caused, again, data corruption. If you want to be 100% safe you need to use enterprise HW and memory mirroring.

    Thanked by 1Amitz
  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    In practice, I had a server with 4 DDR2 regular DIMMs, Zeppelin the cheap type, in a noisy and often ovherheated DC for years. My newer ones with ECC DDR3 are not so stable, that one never failed, nor the VMs on it. I still have it at home, added a videocard to play games on it, it does very well for it's venerable age, Xeon 3070.

  • jbilohjbiloh Administrator, Veteran

    I don't think I've ever seen an example where ECC actually saved a machine from having to go down for a memory swap. Generally single bit errors, even if corrected by ECC, cause a system to go wonky.

  • Hum. I read about this security issue with non-ECC RAM a while ago. -> should use ECC now?

  • @jbiloh said:
    I don't think I've ever seen an example where ECC actually saved a machine from having to go down for a memory swap. Generally single bit errors, even if corrected by ECC, cause a system to go wonky.

    Yes, but what about data integrity?

  • 4n0nx said: should use ECC now?

    Not for personal use. The benefits of ECC are really only apparent with servers powered on 24/7 for years on end. Most personal computers are powered off at regular intervals (e.g. every night, etc.) which effectively mitigates any risk.

    If you want ECC on a personal desktop your options are going to be significantly limited (not to mention expensive). You need a motherboard that supports ECC, then a CPU that supports it (basically a Xeon). That's thousands of options down to hundreds.

    Thanked by 1Maounique
  • Silvenga said: If you want ECC on a personal desktop your options are going to be significantly limited (not to mention expensive). You need a motherboard that supports ECC, then a CPU that supports it (basically a Xeon). That's thousands of options down to hundreds.

    All recent AMD CPUs and chipsets natively support ECC. On Intel you need an E3 or Avoton (besides E5/E7 obviously) but you can also use a (cheap) i3, chipset/MB availability is more of an issue but still not that bad, extra cost is less than 50EUR.

    Thanked by 1inthecloudblog
  • William said: All recent AMD CPUs and chipsets natively support ECC. On Intel you need an E3 or Avoton (besides E5/E7 obviously) but you can also use a (cheap) i3, chipset/MB availability is more of an issue but still not that bad, extra cost is less than 50EUR.

    I just recently built a storage server (with 9 disks :D) for home backup and media transcoding. Problem was I needed at least an i5 for my setup and I wanted to avoid AMD cores. This basically left me with some Xeon core (or equivalent) to pick from. I hated how I was now building around ECC RAM and not around my other requirements so I switched to using Non-ECC RAM in the end.

  • Silvenga said: I wanted to avoid AMD cores

    Silvenga said: so I switched to using Non-ECC RAM in the end

    Well, I'm glad the choice was made based on a rigorous cost/benefit analysis.

    Regarding AMD ECC, well, the problem is a lot of things need to properly designed and tested for ECC to actually be able to correct bit errors. It's a lot easier to design systems that are "placebo ECC" -- able to accept and run ECC memory sticks but unable to actually correct bit errors. To test whether a given system can actually correct single-bit errors, there are special tools that can perform a low-level write to the memory with a pattern that has a correctable bit error, and then see if it is corrected upon issuing a normal read. Unfortunately, these tools are simply not available for consumer-grade AMD boards, making it hard to tell whether you've got a cost-effective ECC setup or whether you're paying a little bit more for nothing at all.

    Thanked by 2Maounique vimalware
  • @Clouvider said:
    Rule of thumb. If you care about quality you use ECC.

    That answer was as useless as answering "I don't know".

    Thanked by 1GM2015
  • I've an old computer from before or around 2005 with DDR1 RAM. The original Samsung 512 MB RAM stick in it is still 100% fine and working without any issues. Usual DDR RAM without ECC or similar. No cooling kit around or it anything. The computer with it has been operating until 2011 when it was replaced with a new one. It still is working however I don't use it anymore.

    Isn't that something rather good? I never had any issues with it in the terms of this subject and topic.

  • The problem with flipped bits in your RAM is that you may never know, why a certain file is corrupt or cannot be read. It could be a disk issue or something else. Most of the time, RAM as the issue comes to mind way to late. Therefore the "I used Non-ECC RAM for years without issues" argument is flawed as long as you are not 100% sure that there never ever was a corrupted file during that time caused by your RAM.

    Thanked by 3Fusl vimalware GM2015
  • FuslFusl Member
    edited October 2015

    jbiloh said: I don't think I've ever seen an example where ECC actually saved a machine from having to go down for a memory swap. Generally single bit errors, even if corrected by ECC, cause a system to go wonky.

    We're using mirrorred ECC memory system for our router (2x 3x 2GB DIMMs) at home. We have seen RAM fail more than often, but it never caused issues for the system, probably due to the quad-parity you get from using mirroring dual-parity CRC capable DIMMs (in this case all ECC DIMMs available). Enterprise hardware like HP DL (everything newer than G4 if I recall correctly) supports hot-plug for RAM, CPU (if shut down correctly inside the operating system) and obviously hard disks.

    If you can afford to have a mirrored 192GB memory set instead of 384GB memory available on your server (more or less depending on your system configuration) and you are really willing to pay twice as much "just" for half of the RAM available in your server, THIS is the correct way to go.

  • Correct. Silent file system corruptions can be a pain in the ass. ZFS for example by now implements a fail-safe against this kind of corruption by double-validating the checksum of the filesystem and CRC table against the checksum table stored on each disk.

  • IgniteServersIgniteServers Member
    edited October 2015

    I really don't have a preference there is really no visible difference in DDR3 and DDR4 IMO besides quality.

  • @IgniteServers said:
    I really don't have a preference there is really no visible difference in DDR3 and DDR4 IMO besides quality.

    You missed the point of this topic.

    Thanked by 2vimalware GM2015
  • Hidden_Refuge said: You missed the point of this topic.

    He's always out of the loop. At this point, I'm starting to think it's deliberate ...

  • In response to my decision on the poll " ECC vs. Non-ECC RAM".

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    IgniteServers said: In response to my decision on the poll " ECC vs. Non-ECC RAM".

    A-ha, this clarified it...

    Thanked by 2Amitz GM2015
  • ClouviderClouvider Member, Patron Provider

    then I recommend looking into what ECC memory actually is and what are the differences, starting with Wikipedia:
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ECC_memory

    Implying there is no operational difference is simply ignorant ;-).

  • Holy hell I need sleep my first response was off the wall lol, anyhow I think its better to use ECC memory if your looking for stability and quality I mean no since in using non ECC because who doesn't want quality hardware something they can depend on.

  • In the end, it all comes to shit happens when shit happens eh?

    According to Google ECC is not THAT perfect either. Surely ECC is the way to go for production but still sometimes, for some projects it makes you wonder does it really worth going the extra mile?

  • I do lot's of bit flipping when storing ( in theory, for school) a negative int into ram. Gotta love dec to Two's Complement lol

  • MaouniqueMaounique Host Rep, Veteran

    This should have less to do with heat and more to do with radiation, EM and charged particles.
    Also, someone rightfully noted the noisy MBs with circuits passing through very noisy places and being hair-thin at times.

    Thanked by 1GM2015
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