Is ECC mandatory?

[time]

What does everyone think about the use of conventional, unbuffered, non-ECC RAM in 1GB modules?

I'm speccing a workgroup server with 2GB RAM and wondering whether the extra cost of a Tyan board, Opteron CPU, and ECC RAM is really justified.

It's never going to be upgraded past 2GB (it really only needs a little over 1GB), it won't have a high-performance disk system (just two 7200 mirrored drives), and I can't foresee any circumstance where a second CPU would be called for.

 

[sechs]

One finds that the difference between a high-end desktop computer and low-end server is the case that you put it in.

If you're looking at something that's non-critical and doesn't really need speed, then the expense isn't strictly necessary.

 

[P5-133XL]

The issue isn't performance (ECC is a lower performance RAM) but reliability. You need to make a judgement call. I suspect the answer is no you don't need ECC, but only you can make the call.

 

[Tannin]

Let's try a thought experiment:

Build a good-quality standard system. Use, let's say for the sake of argument, a Gigabyte VIA main board, the CPU of your choice, a fanless Gforce 4MX, a GB or two of quality RAM (Geil or etc.), a pair of Samsung hard drives. Now run Windows 2000 on it (or any other half-decent OS). Give it a reasonable UPS. Keep it spyware-free. Run it 24/7.

How often would you expect it to make mistakes? Maybe three or four times a year, max? Probably less than that.

There is your answer: if that is good enough, it's the way to go. If it's not, you need to do something else. I don't know what.

 

[Bozo]

How much is your peace of mind worth?

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[iGary]

...I'm speccing a workgroup server with 2GB RAM and wondering whether the extra cost of a Tyan board, Opteron CPU, and ECC RAM is really justified.

It's never going to be upgraded past 2GB (it really only needs a little over 1GB), it won't have a high-performance disk system (just two 7200 mirrored drives), and I can't foresee any circumstance where a second CPU would be called for.

As you describe it, quite likely NOT NEEDED. A modern desktop mobo and a namebrand pedigree RAM of a known quality for desktop computers is quite sufficient for the task.

I've specified such hardware for servers that were considered to be non-critical and were predicted to experience relatively low-levels of network traffic and disc I/O. Caveat: this excludes database servers. I would recommend the use of ECC DRAM in servers hosting a database, since tables typically run in primary memory, and corruption of database tables due to primary memory errors can be a very bad surprise.


ECC DRAM will guard against soft memory errors through the use of single error correcting ECC DRAM. Soft errors can be caused by heat buildup, general memory cell failures, certain instances of electro-magnetic interference, or even cosmic radiation. Chip-kill ECC will guard against the hard errors such as a bad DIMM contact, short, or outright DRAM module failure.

 

[iGary]

I got distracted here earlier and forgot to comment on the need for a second microprocessor, as well as my own 2-cents-worth of advice on power supplies.

Second processor recommendations tend to be more than a bit over inflated. Modern mid-speed A32, A64, or hyper-threaded P4 all provide more than enough processing throughput when communicating over a typical 100 Mb Ethernet LAN connection to clients. With the exception compute-intensive servers, such as database and transaction processing servers, investment in multi-processing (microprocessors and advanced mobo) is generally a poor investment.

In the case of any 24x7 server, a redundant power supply is virtually mandatory. Needless to say, infrastructure is very important -- mains, environmental, and physical protection. Also high on list are backup / restore, maybe even replication.

 

[blakerwry]

We use 2x1GB crucial RAM in a mission critical Live voice switch at work. It's their standard unbuffered non-ECC PC3200 stock running in dual channel mode.

The machine hiccups occasionally, but it's never been attirbuted to RAM, and memtest86 never reported any errors during burn in.

I would have no qualms with non-ECC RAM.