Do You really Need ECC RAM for a home NAS???

[link955]

Okay so ive been browsing the forums looking at different nas build post etc.It seems like people are saying if you dont have ECC RAM your data is gonna die?  Im on a tight budget (around $450, and if i got ECC Ram and a  supported board would be like 200$ more) I want to know is it 100% necessary to even use ECC RAM. I am only going to be using my NAS to store photos and movies on and run a plex server (Only trans coding for 1 person at a time).  What do you guys think. Lets solve this confusion once and for all. 

Thanks

 

 

This is the build im looking at getting. For those interested.

 

PCPartPicker part list: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BpYQFT
Price breakdown by merchant: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/BpYQFT/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD 5350 2.05Ghz Quad-Core Processor  ($38.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC Alpine M1 - Passive Fanless CPU Cooler  ($10.49 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock AM1H-ITX Mini ITX AM1 Motherboard  ($50.98 @ Newegg) 
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Black 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory  ($34.88 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Seagate  2TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($82.99 @ Amazon) 
Storage: Seagate  2TB 3.5" 5900RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($82.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX Tower Case  ($84.99 @ Directron) 
Power Supply: EVGA 430W 80+ Certified ATX Power Supply  ($32.74 @ Amazon) 
Total: $419.05
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-04-05 21:49 EDT-0400

[tt2468]

ECC isn't required. Where it helps is when you are running zfs. Then ECC ram is highly recommended.

[link955]

Just now, Kyle Manning said:

ECC isn't required. Where it helps is when you are running zfs. Then ECC ram is highly recommended.

I know freenas's big thing about it is its ZFS, Does it have any other arrays that are good but where ECC RAM isnt highly required? 

[tt2468]

Just now, link955 said:

I know freenas's big thing about it is its ZFS, Does it have any other arrays that are good but where ECC RAM isnt highly required? 

*recommended

Even in general with linux software raid, ECC is something that will almost remove the possibility of data corruption.

[RedWulf]

2 minutes ago, link955 said:

I know freenas's big thing about it is its ZFS, Does it have any other arrays that are good but where ECC RAM isnt highly required? 

ecc isnt highy required, its like server oriented drives or gold rated PSUs. We recommend it but odds are you'll be fine withou it

[link955]

1 minute ago, Kyle Manning said:

*recommended

Even in general with linux software raid, ECC is something that will almost remove the possibility of data corruption.

Okay you have convinced me that ECC is recomended.  do you have a build about $450-$550  (with atleast 2 drives) that has ECC ram in it?

[CrackheadKyle]

Unless if your info is mission critical like for a small business and if any errors occurs it would cause a huge monetary loss or disruption in operation No you would not need that for say games, personal photos or even tax info standard DDR works 80-90% flawless and 99% of errors aren't even noticable so you spending exponentially more for that extra 5-9% and a bit more reassurance

[leadeater]

19 minutes ago, RedWulf said:

ecc isnt highy required, its like server oriented drives or gold rated PSUs. We recommend it but odds are you'll be fine withou it

True odds are you will be fine but its not quite like server disks or gold/plat PSU's. Those only have higher rated mean time between failure and/or better URE rates.

 

ECC is an additional feature which adds a new and directly applicable protection, something that does not exist in any capacity without ECC. ECC is always used on hardware RAID cards and by the same measure should be used when implementing software RAID or any other software storage technology which uses RAM as a cache or integrity calculation buffer. 

 

Without ECC a memory error will cause a bad write to physical disk, it's just that this is much more rare than URE on disks (which is also rare).

 

To me this is a needless discussion, the total cost of purchase with and without ECC is so small there is no reason to not get ECC.

[beavo451]

55 minutes ago, leadeater said:

 

To me this is a needless discussion, the total cost of purchase with and without ECC is so small there is no reason to not get ECC.

No. The price difference is not trivial. Even the FreeNAS documentation says "If your system supports it and your budget allows for it"

[79wjd]

2 hours ago, Savageiste said:

Unless if your info is mission critical like for a small business and if any errors occurs it would cause a huge monetary loss or disruption in operation No you would not need that for say games, personal photos or even tax info standard DDR works 80-90% flawless and 99% of errors aren't even noticable so you spending exponentially more for that extra 5-9% and a bit more reassurance

The bigger issue with not using ECC is that if the wrong bit of data gets corrupted (like part of the OS) you could lose the entire pool. For something like Windows server going without ECC isn't such a big deal, with ZFS (such as FreeNAS) going without ECC could result in the OS (which runs from ram) getting corrupted which could easily destroy ALL of your data. 

 

Thats not not to say you're doomed if you're using non ECC memory. I ran my server off of 8gb of non ECC for about 6 months without any signs of a problem, but I was still at risk of losing everything.

 

 

 

@link955 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zY26vK

[beavo451]

13 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

The bigger issue with not using ECC is that if the wrong bit of data gets corrupted (like part of the OS) you could lose the entire pool. For something like Windows server going without ECC isn't such a big deal, with ZFS (such as FreeNAS) going without ECC could result in the OS (which runs from ram) getting corrupted which could easily destroy ALL of your data. 

 

Thats not not to say you're doomed if you're using non ECC memory. I ran my server off of 8gb of non ECC for about 6 months without any signs of a problem, but I was still at risk of losing everything.

 

 

 

@link955 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zY26vK

There is debate if this doomsday scenario can even happen. I personally don't believe it. Otherwise there would be some story out there about it happening.

 

Also, if there were even a possibility, then the documentation should include such a warning about such an ominous scenario.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, beavo451 said:

No. The price difference is not trivial. Even the FreeNAS documentation says "If your system supports it and your budget allows for it"

The price of the single component may be 50%+ more but the total price of purchase is not significantly impacted. This is of course personal opinion and what I find not a significant increase others may disagree, if the purchase was $1000 without ECC and $1100 with then I'd just pay the extra (just an example).

[79wjd]

14 minutes ago, beavo451 said:

There is debate if this doomsday scenario can even happen. I personally don't believe it. Otherwise there would be some story out there about it happening.

If you go on the FreeNAS forums (where you need to take any stickied post with a truckload of salt) you'll find some threads where people lost their pools due to not having ECC. Many of them are caused by bad RAM where ECC would have caused the system to hault rather than allowing the OS to get corrupted, but I would consider both to be equally valid concerns with going with non ECC.

 

That's not to say I think non ECC should never be done, it has a time and a place; and I personally think the FreeNAS forums are filled with elitist asshats, but ECC has its place and in most scenarios I would generally recommend spending the extra $100 or so to go with ECC (it's also worth noting a lot of am1 boards have full ECC support -- I believe -- unless they pull the same shit as some of the h87 "ws" boards that list compatibility with ECC but basically disable all ECC functionality).

[leadeater]

15 minutes ago, beavo451 said:

There is debate if this doomsday scenario can even happen. I personally don't believe it. Otherwise there would be some story out there about it happening.

 

Also, if there were even a possibility, then the documentation should include such a warning about such an ominous scenario.

There are a few reasons as to why reports of the issue are very few:

• RAM errors are very rare, so yes you are correct it's not doomsday at all
• Errors in a ZFS setup would only effect singular files not the whole array, which ZFS may be able to fix itself
• Many home users don't know how to properly diagnose and identify issues so could have no idea a problem was a RAM error, this is hard even for server/storage professionals anyway without a direct RAM error message or BSOD etc.
• All business/corporate ZFS installations use ECC memory and since these are vastly bigger array sizes with much higher demand they are more likely to have the issue.

Also remember there isn't a single storage vendor that does not use ECC memory in their products, whether it is a hardware RAID card or simple storage array or a multi-node SAN they all always use ECC. There is a very clear and technically sound reason for this which has been explained, when you are a business using or selling storage ignoring a risk even small which has such a simple and cheap fix is not an option.

 

If I was going to use a ZFS system on existing hardware that does not have ECC at home yea sure I would have no problem with it and just do it. If I was purchasing a new system I will always buy ECC. People are free to what they feel is right, I'll just always give the advise that is the safest.

[Mark77]

My view -- if you're running "consumer" grade hardware (or heaven forbid, "gaming" hardware), then ECC is a waste of money.  There's lots of other areas in which you're more likely to suffer data loss/corruption. 

 

If you've bought server-grade motherboards, power supplies, and UPS, and run a RAID-6 (or RAID-1), redundant network interfaces, and a reasonably ruggedized operating system, etc., etc., then yeah, you probably should buy that ECC RAM. 

 

I don't want to throw statistics out there (because I don't got any), but I suspect lack of ECC capability is only very minimally a factor behind real-life data corruption.  If its only 1/8ths more expensive, sure, go buy it, but unless you've addressed those other systemic causes of data loss, ECC is probably a waste in the whole scheme of things.

[Rob_LC]

My view - spend $59 on unRaid and use standard non ecc memory - freeNAS with ZFS is not really suited to a small home NAS, its for the serious commercial level user.

You can run Plex in a docker no problem on unRaid. Try it free for a month on an old pc with a couple of small drives thrown in it. The pc only needs 2GB ram, and to be able to boot from USB (unRaid is on a usb stick) and have a few SATA ports to conenct drives.

 

I would also suggest trying to stretch to at least 3TB drives if you are buying new, like WD Blue ($96) or Red if they are on special. 

 

How many of the 2 drive consumer NAS appliances do you think use ECC ram?

 

[leadeater]

5 hours ago, Rob_LC said:

How many of the 2 drive consumer NAS appliances do you think use ECC ram?

 

None, or might as well say none. 2 bay consumer NAS's don't use the ram as a write-back cache or do any parity calculations so ECC would actually be a waste. Also like you pointed out a 2 bay nas, even 16 bay, don't run ZFS unless your buying the QNAP enterprise range of products.

 

The important factor to whether or not you need ECC ram is what the ram is actually doing. If the ram plays no part in data being written to physical disk then you don't need it.

[79wjd]

6 hours ago, Mark77 said:

My view -- if you're running "consumer" grade hardware (or heaven forbid, "gaming" hardware), then ECC is a waste of money.  There's lots of other areas in which you're more likely to suffer data loss/corruption. 

 

If you've bought server-grade motherboards, power supplies, and UPS, and run a RAID-6 (or RAID-1), redundant network interfaces, and a reasonably ruggedized operating system, etc., etc., then yeah, you probably should buy that ECC RAM. 

Drives generally don't fail out of nowhere. Any half decent modern motherboard and psu aren't super likely to be failure points either and generally going with ECC means a server grade motherboard anyway. So I don't really agree with you here, yes there are other factors to consider, but stepping up to ECC (and a server grade board) is a very good one.

5 hours ago, Rob_LC said:

My view - spend $59 on unRaid and use standard non ecc memory - freeNAS with ZFS is not really suited to a small home NAS, its for the serious commercial level user.

You can run Plex in a docker no problem on unRaid. Try it free for a month on an old pc with a couple of small drives thrown in it. The pc only needs 2GB ram, and to be able to boot from USB (unRaid is on a usb stick) and have a few SATA ports to conenct drives.

 

I disagree, FreeNAS is also good on a consumer level as well. ZFS raid is quite a bit better than standard software raid in general (I don't know what unraid uses, so I can't really say how it compares to unraids attempt at raid). The only thing that FreeNAS requires more of than what you listed is the base ram requirement (of 8gb due to the fact that FreeNAS runs from memory).

 

freenas can also run on an old system as long as it supports 8gb of ram, and you can probably get away with less anyway (although it's not cost effective to run a server on something old enough to not have 8gb of ram as a cheap upgrade path anyway). FreeNAS can also boot off a usb.

 

An ECC based system is only about $100 more expensive (and an AM1 based system with ECC memory -- if it properly supports ECC -- is even less than that). So going with unraid will save you $40 (which will be completely irrelevant of you need a raid card -- I don't know how good unraids software raid is) AND you end up with a non server grade board and non ECC memory. 

[brandishwar]

I went into pretty good detail on ECC vs non-ECC in the build log for my NAS build ("Nasira"). In that build I used ECC RAM only because the mainboard and processor I used supported it: AMD FX 8350 with an Asus Sabertooth 990FX R2.0 (it was my wife's computer prior to her upgrade). I'll just quote what I wrote here:

 

So if I've opted for ECC RAM, which everyone recommends for FreeNAS, why am I about to discuss ECC vs non-ECC? Well it's in light of a recent video on Paul's Hardware in which he builds a NAS using FreeNAS but doesn't use ECC RAM. In part this is because he used an ITX board with a Sandy Bridge processor. But several pointed out in the comments that he's not using ECC. Many acted like Paul's data was moments from destruction for not using ECC RAM.

 

ECC memory is heavily recommended though not absolutely required. FreeNAS won't fail to run if you're not using it, and your data isn't under any significantly higher relative risk by not using it depending on your use case. Instead ECC memory is heavily recommended for ZFS simply due to what the ZFS file system does in memory. Which is pretty nearly everything. And as ECC memory can recover from some memory issues, whereas non-ECC memory has no recovery capability, ECC is the obviously better choice.

 

But the whole ECC vs non-ECC discussion is a bit overblown with regard to ZFS and FreeNAS, almost religious in nature. Doomsday scenarios have replaced objective discussion with many overlooking the fact that data corruption can come from many sources, of which memory is only one. And the examples of how memory corruption can propagate on a NAS are also examples of how it can propagate really anywhere.

 

I'll repeat what many have said: ECC memory is better, plain and simple. If it wasn't, or wasn't significantly better than non-ECC memory in the systems where it is typically employed, it wouldn't exist because no one would buy it. What'd be the point?

 

Matt Ahrens, one of the co-founders of the ZFS file system, is often quoted with regard to this: "I would simply say: if you love your data, use ECC RAM. Additionally, use a filesystem that checksums your data, such as ZFS." Many have interpreted this as meaning that you must use ECC RAM with ZFS, and a basic misunderstanding of grammar and syntax would allow that misinterpretation. He's saying to use ECC RAM. Separately he's saying to use ZFS. He is not saying you must use ECC RAM with ZFS.

 

In fact, he says quite the opposite in the same post I quoted. That doesn't mean it's not a good idea to use it. Absolutely it is. But will your NAS crash and burn and fry all your data, including your backups, if you don't use it? It's extremely unlikely you'll get that unlucky. And if that does happen, don't be so quick to blame your memory before determining if it might have been something else.

 

Despite what seems to be the prevailing belief when discussing FreeNAS, memory is not the only source of data corruption. And even if you're using non-ECC RAM, I'd still say it's unlikely to be the cause of data corruption. Cables can go bad. Poor-quality SATA cables could increase their susceptibility to a phenomenon called "cross talk". In one of my systems, a 24-pin power extension cable on the power supply went bad, causing symptoms that made me think the power supply itself had gone bad. Connectors on the power supply to the drives could cause problems, including premature drive death. If power delivery to your NAS is substandard, it could wreak havoc. Linus Media Group suffered a major setback with their main storage server after one of the RAID controllers decided to have a hissy fit before they had that system completely backed up.

 

A NAS should be considered a mission-critical system. And to borrow my father's phrasing, you don't muck with your mission-critical systems. And that includes when building them, meaning don't cut any corners. Regardless of whether you go with ECC or non-ECC memory, it needs to be quality. The power supply should be very well rated for stable power delivery and quality connections (on which Jonny Guru is considered the go-to source for reviews and evaluations). The SATA or SAS data cables should be high quality as well, shielded if possible (such as the 3M 5602 series). You don't need premium hardware, but you can't go with the cheapest stuff on the shelf either. Not if you care about your data.

 

Bottom line, many have used non-ECC memory with FreeNAS for years without a problem. Others haven't been so lucky. But whether those losses were the result of not using ECC memory has been difficult to pin down. Again, there are many things that can cause data corruption or the appearance of data corruption that aren't RAM related.

 

So again, you may not be under any higher relative risk going with non-ECC memory. Your home NAS box is unlikely to see the kind of workloads and exposures to electromagnetic and radio interference common in business and enterprise environments, and it's those environments where ECC memory is a basic requirement regardless of what the server is doing.

 

If you can use ECC, go for it. Your system will be more stable in the end, and it's not hugely expensive -- I've seen it for under 8 USD/GB. If you can't, don't fret too much because you're not. Just make sure the RAM you do use is quality memory. And whether you're using ECC or not, test it with MemTest86 before building your system and re-test it periodically. But regardless of whether you're using ECC RAM, make sure to maintain backups of the critical stuff.

[Sunshine1868]

No.

 

also, ZFS doesn't actually require 1GB RAM per 1GB Storage. that's a "rule of thumb", but it does not scale correctly.

[AshleyAshes]

On ‎4‎/‎6‎/‎2016 at 0:26 AM, djdwosk97 said:

The bigger issue with not using ECC is that if the wrong bit of data gets corrupted (like part of the OS) you could lose the entire pool. For something like Windows server going without ECC isn't such a big deal, with ZFS (such as FreeNAS) going without ECC could result in the OS (which runs from ram) getting corrupted which could easily destroy ALL of your data. 

 

Thats not not to say you're doomed if you're using non ECC memory. I ran my server off of 8gb of non ECC for about 6 months without any signs of a problem, but I was still at risk of losing everything.

 

 

 

@link955 http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zY26vK

What on earth are you talking about?  You can TOTALLY migrate a ZFS array between machines or just hose the OS and leave the ZFS array intact and have NAS4Free reimport the drives.  I've done it.

 

Honestly, think about what you said rationally: Do you think that a redundant storage solution that would blow up and all data be unrecoverable if the OS ever became corrupted or otherwise inoperable would have anywhere NEAR the level of usage it has in enterprise situations???  Redundancy and recovery of data is the primary design of NFS.

[79wjd]

22 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

What on earth are you talking about?  You can TOTALLY migrate a ZFS array between machines or just hose the OS and leave the ZFS array intact and have NAS4Free reimport the drives.  I've done it.

 

Honestly, think about what you said rationally: Do you think that a redundant storage solution that would blow up and all data be unrecoverable if the OS ever became corrupted or otherwise inoperable would have anywhere NEAR the level of usage it has in enterprise situations???  Redundancy and recovery of data is the primary design of NFS.

I never said you can't migrate a pool. BUT, if your OS becomes corrupt you'll very likely end up trashing your pools beyond repair depending on how the corruption happened. If a stick of memory goes bad, and it's not ECC, then you're going to have a very bad day. 

[AshleyAshes]

Just now, djdwosk97 said:

I never said you can't migrate a pool. BUT, if your OS becomes corrupt you'll very likely end up trashing your pools beyond repair depending on how the corruption happened. If a stick of memory goes bad you're going to have a very bad day if it's not ECC. 

Again, redundancy.  The entire ZFS file system is purpose built to avoid such concerns.  The ZFS file system is built like a brick shit house but you clearly have no idea how it works.  Unless the data is in memory and being written to the file system, it will just sit there.  Even a corrupted OS doesn't jump up and start eating the file system like some kind of random Skynet creation.  Only data in the process of being written, either in memory or needing to be read from a cache drive and copied to the file ZFS filesystem would be at risk.  And these are the rare situations where ECC can be a benefit.  A random cosmic ray flipping a bit in your memory will not cause you to lose all data.  Protection against this is literally why ZFS exists.

 

And it makes sense in an enterprise situation.  There's a LOT of data moving in and out of memory to meet the demands of whatever service and you need to maximize uptime.  Meanwhile most end users who have a NAS are just hoarding files, usually media, files that will sit on the storage and rarely be read and when they are read they will be read for a pretty brief time (Relatively speaking).  Hard drive failures, now those are cause for a doom scenario.  Or a PSU failure that just up and burns out everything attached to it.  Power surge in your electrical grid.  Your idiot roommate flooding the place.  These are the things you should fear.  Insisting on ECC memory for a home user to avoid the 'monster' of 'total data loss', that's just ignorant nerds trying to out fearmonger each other.

[79wjd]

9 minutes ago, AshleyAshes said:

Again, redundancy.  The entire ZFS file system is purpose built to avoid such concerns.  The ZFS file system is built like a brick shit house but you clearly have no idea how it works.  Unless the data is in memory and being written to the file system, it will just sit there.  Even a corrupted OS doesn't jump up and start eating the file system like some kind of random Skynet creation.  Only data in the process of being written, either in memory or needing to be read from a cache drive and copied to the file ZFS filesystem would be at risk.  And these are the rare situations where ECC can be a benefit.  A random cosmic ray flipping a bit in your memory will not cause you to lose all data.  Protection against this is literally why ZFS exists.

 

And it makes sense in an enterprise situation.  There's a LOT of data moving in and out of memory to meet the demands of whatever service and you need to maximize uptime.  Meanwhile most end users who have a NAS are just hoarding files, usually media, files that will sit on the storage and rarely be read and when they are read they will be read for a pretty brief time (Relatively speaking).  Hard drive failures, now those are cause for a doom scenario.  Or a PSU failure that just up and burns out everything attached to it.  Power surge in your electrical grid.  Your idiot roommate flooding the place.  These are the things you should fear.  Insisting on ECC memory for a home user to avoid the 'monster' of 'total data loss', that's just ignorant nerds trying to out fearmonger each other.

You can choose to believe what you want, but I'll still be sitting here knowing full well that my data isn't at risk of eating itself alive every time a scrub is done or a file gets written. And there is literally no reason to go with FreeNAS if you're not going to use ECC memory, the reason to use ZFS is to take advantage of its superior data corruption prevention scheme -- which doesn't do jack without ECC memory. 

[AshleyAshes]

2 minutes ago, djdwosk97 said:

You can choose to believe what you want, but I'll still be sitting here knowing full well that my data isn't at risk of eating itself alive every time a scrub is done or a file gets written. And there is literally no reason to go with FreeNAS if you're not going to use ECC memory, the reason to use ZFS is to take advantage of its superior data corruption prevention scheme -- which doesn't do jack without ECC memory. 

See, again, I don't think you get how this actually works.  A file system will write any data it is given, even corrupted data, ECC helps prevent data in memory from being corrupted and then being written as corrupted.  ...However this applies to ALL file systems.  ZFS has no magical additional immunity to this when paired with ECC that any other FS fails to benefits.  At this point I can only assume that you have zero idea as to how ZFS even works and why it is a superior file system for data storage and integrity over other file systems.