ECC or Non ECC ram for NAS

[itachi737]

Hello,

I want to build a NAS for home usage. 

 

I read a lot of articles and threads about building a NAS and setting it up, but there is a big argument about ECC.  The more I read on it the more I'm confused.

 

I understand that ECC detects and corrects data corruption on ram sticks. Without it data corruption can go unnoticed. Back-ups are not a solution, because if the data corruption is undetected, the back-up will also contain corrupted data.  According to Google, 5 bit are corrupted every hour per 8 GB stick. 

 

I have two questions:

 

Is data corruption that serious?

I don’t have any research that is supposed to cure cancer or send a man to Mars. All I have is family pictures and a lot of movies. For the pictures I can also store them on Google drive as soon as I take them so even if they get corrupted there should be a backup without corruption. I'm more worried about the movies. If one movie stops working every month or year that’s no big deal, but I don’t want to lose all of them due to silent data corruption.

 

Is it happening faster on a NAS (zfs) than on a Desktop?

I stored my data on a desktop for more than a decade and I never had any major issue due to it. I'm not saying that it didn't happen, but when it did, the issue was so minor that I didn't even notice it.

 

I’m asking all this, because I have two options:

-          Upgrade my ram to 8gb on my old pc (i5 650, mobo: h57h-am2, 600w bronze power supply, 4gb ram. 50$

-          Build a NAS with an i3 4130, server motherboard, and 8gb ecc memory. 550$

 

I would rather just buy some more ram, because 550$ is a lot of money, but if my data really is not safe with non ecc ram, than I’m willing to wait a bit and build the one with ecc ram.

 

Thank you

[Aytex]

if they are on google drive or some cloud then you might as well save some money

[iamdarkyoshi]

I have a mediaserver with over a tb of movies, photos, and music. Its just an i5 750 with regular memory. I havent had issues... I do keep a backup on exeternal drives, and a master one via sugarsync.

[ShadowCaptain]

I have cloud backups for all my data, which I do weekly (my server backs up nightly) and I also plan on keeping a copy of my data inside my PC too

So I will have 3 copies of the data, one in pc, one on server, one in cloud - if anything goes wrong I should be covered

each set of data is backed up independently from the source - so a corruption would not carry over to the other systems

[itachi737]

if they are on google drive or some cloud then you might as well save some money

Only the pictures are on google drive. The movies are not. I also want to use that nas to stream to my two tvs and torrent directly on it. 

[itachi737]

I have cloud backups for all my data, which I do weekly (my server backs up nightly) and I also plan on keeping a copy of my data inside my PC too So I will have 3 copies of the data, one in pc, one on server, one in cloud - if anything goes wrong I should be covered each set of data is backed up independently from the source - so a corruption would not carry over to the other systems

What os are you using for your server?

[Nena Trinity]

NAS is server? Then ECC! :3

[itachi737]

NAS is server? Then ECC! :3

NAS = network attached storage So its more or less the same thing as a server. 

[Nena Trinity]

NAS = network attached storage So its more or less the same thing as a server. 

ECC is good if your CPU and mobo support it!

[itachi737]

ECC is good if your CPU and mobo support it!

Mine doesn't. So I would have to build an entire new system for it. The cheapest that I found with all the specs that I want costs around 550$ for the cpu, mobo, ram, and case. 

If I use my old one, all I have to do is upgrade the ram to 8gb. Is ECC really worth the 500$ difference?

[Nena Trinity]

Mine doesn't. So I would have to build an entire new system for it. The cheapest that I found with all the specs that I want costs around 550$ for the cpu, mobo, ram, and case. 

If I use my old one, all I have to do is upgrade the ram to 8gb. Is ECC really worth the 500$ difference?

Geeh I am not sure really all I know is that ECC is more reliable and wont make mistakes...

[Curufinwe_wins]

ECC ram is NEVER worth it for a consumer. 99.99999999% of the time it won't matter. So no unless 500 dollars is worth .000001% of the time event's don't buy it.

[itachi737]

ECC ram is NEVER worth it for a consumer. 99.99999999% of the time it won't matter. So no unless 500 dollars is worth .000001% of the time event's don't buy it.

Thank you.  Finally a clear answer on the subject. 

[rcarteraz]

ECC ram is NEVER worth it for a consumer. 99.99999999% of the time it won't matter. So no unless 500 dollars is worth .000001% of the time event's don't buy it.

 

Even if said consumer has TB's of data they want protected? I have currently ~5TB's of data and am in the process of building a NAS. Even though 98% isn't critical in the sense that other than time invested there's no other value to it, I would hate to have to start over again. Would your statement still apply?

[Curufinwe_wins]

Even if said consumer has TB's of data they want protected? I have currently ~5TB's of data and am in the process of building a NAS. Even though 98% isn't critical in the sense that other than time invested there's no other value to it, I would hate to have to start over again. Would your statement still apply?

I don't think it's worth the cost personally, and I've never had any issues with my own nas setup using regular ram.

If you already have everything setup and the time you've already spent is worth the extra money for components then keep going. The opportunity cost of time spent is often forgotten.