Importance of ECC RAM?

[Stardenver]

Hi all

I know about the benefits of ECC RAM and actually we all know ECC is better than non-ECC and we could just forget about this topic^^

What I really wanna know is, how likely is a system without ECC going to fail or produce critical errors? My Cloudron server is for personal/private use only and actually all data will be backed up on several locations (homeserver, external HDD, external SSD, Online-Storage). So in case of a total data-lose I could recover all data. Its just that I want to avoid all the stress and downtime that comes with it, even though I could handle losing the server.

Money is a big point on this, as I am married and my wife doesn't think I need all those electronic gimmicks xD So right now I have to decide between ECC or better CPU und bigger storage. I would prefer the better CPU and storage but I don't know if its worth it, in case it will provide more problems to go down the non-ecc-road.

So.. anyone here has some experience with ecc systems compared to non-ecc? How likely is the non-ecc going to fail? Are there any statistics or sources with comparisons between those two options? Anything like x% of non-ecc-system failed within given years, etc.

I am really just trying to find out if ECC is more important than cpu-power and storage.

Thanks all for your input.

[robi]

@Stardenver The best answer is, it depends.

If you value uptime, then RAM and HDD space are things to consider, not CPU.

If your usage case is light in terms of HDD space and you have plenty, then choose RAM.

The worst that happens if a RAM module gets an error that the kernel cannot recover from is a hang or reboot, similar to a power outtage. If you're ok with those, no need to worry.

[humptydumpty]

@Stardenver the biggest threat to my homeserver’s uptime is power delivery like when a storm hits my area (which is frequent) so a UPS is better to have in my opinion. AFAIK, I haven’t had a RAM related crash yet. I’m using a 1L PC (Lenovo thinkcentre m700) that has an Intel i5-6500T CPU and 8GB of RAM. I have 4 users with around 6 devices and have Nextcloud and Vaultwarden installed on it. I’m not seeing any mentionable usage in the resource graphs. I’m estimating about $4-$5/mo in electricity costs and someone on here is using an older NUC that consumes even less power. You can grab a mini PC like mine for around $100-$140 on eBay. This might be enough for your needs but which apps are you looking to run and how much storage do you need?

[JOduMonT]

@Stardenver said in Importance of ECC RAM?:

Money is a big point on this

last time I check for my homeserver; it was around 20€ or electricity; so maybe you could consider to host your stuff in a datacenter

• my homeserver is small one i5 + 6 HD

@humptydumpty said in Importance of ECC RAM?:

UPS is better to have in my opinion

I think so too; also the UPS will regulate the power so more likely help the RAM to not have error, so no need of correction; unless you want to overclock which is counterproductive for a server.

after a UPS is to have a RAID, then 2 Power Supply in your system
after 2 Power Supply I would say 2 internet connection
...

[MooCloud_Matt]

@JOduMonT

ECC now has mostly the same price as non-ECC, and AMD CPU support them for years.

But in general is better to have ECC if using FS that takes advantage of that, BTRFS, ZFS.
Or if you use TMPFS.

But if you care about latency then normal RAM is better, ECC slows down communication.