to ECC or not to ECC

[cantharides]

At first I thought using an older socket 775 mobo for my unraid server, but since the hardware has been used for a few years as htpc it is perhaps better to buy a new rig.

 

:-\So I'm hesitating to buy a new rig for my unraid server:

 

Athlon II 245e + AM3 (870 chipset) + ECC DDR3 ram

 

Core i3 + 1156 mobo + non ECC ram

 

I don't want to spend a huge amount of money on the hardware, so both configs are not very expensive.

 

First I thought to go with the intel solution (cause intel seems to be perefered on this site), but the i3 doesn't support ECC.

 

 

So is the athlon a better solution, since all AMD support ECC ram ?

 

 

[SSD]

Socket 775 should work fine. I'd suggest you start with that. After you get some experience and have a better understanding of the best kind of server for your needs, you can but new components then.

 

Soon new motherboards will feature the new bios STD (UEFI) meaning the current generation will be considered obsolete by some. Another reason you might want to wait.

[Kaygee]

In addition ECC memory is usually a lot more expensive due to volumes and requiring more memory for the same size.

 

775 m/b is perfectly capable of running unRAID. Gb nic, few sata ports and you are up and running.

[bcbgboy13]

In addition ECC memory is usually a lot more expensive due to volumes and requiring more memory for the same size.

 

This is not true - the regular ECC memory is just marginally more expensive than the plain vanilla one (it is the cost of one or two extra memory chips). As such in theory they will work in any motherboard supporting ECC memory. But this wont stop DELL, or HP for that matter to sell you one approved (and unique) parts for 3x -4x more as your company is in exclusive contract with one of them, buy only from them and need the support from them.

 

However I will agree 100% that if someone has a 775 board (especially with an Intel chipset) they may start with this one and wait for a year or two as support for larger than 2.1Tb HDs and motherboards that wont have problems with them, UNRAID support, additional controller support clears 100%.

 

Also while the AMD CPUs have ECC support build in, many of the AMD motherboard manufacturers do not support ECC memories - you have to be careful in picking that motherboard - especially now with DDR3.

 

 

[cantharides]

The reason why I want to buy new hardware is the following:

 

My socket 775 setup is 5+ years old, so hardware failure is more emminent than with new hardware.

Socket 775, in my case core2duo E6600, is way less energy efficient then new hardware (a new Athlon 245e has a TDP of 45W), witch I think is important for a server that stays on 24H/7d. Or may I shut down the server during the night (which requires daily reboot).

 

If I choose new athlon or old core2duo ,in both cases I need to buy ECC memory, I was thinking about 2Gb would be sufficient. DDR3 is sold cheaper now then DDR2, a modules costs about 20-30 euro, so price is not really an issue here.

 

Asus mobo's almost always support ECC, also their AMD mobo's (Asrock for instance never does).

 

In the case of a core i3, ECC is not supported, cause the CPU doesn't support this, though I've read on the forum that a lot of people are buying this to build an unraid server.

 

Is ECC really relevant or not ? Do I need to bother with this or not ?

Are AM3 mobo's fully supported by UNRAID ?

When I use older hardware and I need to change my mobo after perhaps 2 years, will this cause a problem for my raid array ?

 

 

[nia]

Is ECC really relevant or not ? Do I need to bother with this or not ?

I would be interested in this as well as I might be doing a major upgrade later this year. What is the actual benefit of this?

 

When I use older hardware and I need to change my mobo after perhaps 2 years, will this cause a problem for my raid array ?

That is one of the beauties of unRAID - you can completely change your underlying infrastructure (i did so myself after a crappy ThermalTake water cooler leak), as long as you have the drives intact, and a print of the slot allocation from the web GUI - ideally you will have labelled your disk physically as well to make things easier.

[Kaygee]

In addition ECC memory is usually a lot more expensive due to volumes and requiring more memory for the same size.

 

This is not true - the regular ECC memory is just marginally more expensive than the plain vanilla one (it is the cost of one or two extra memory chips). As such in theory they will work in any motherboard supporting ECC memory.

 

I took a look at newegg and 1Gb PC3 is only a few % more, 2GB 10-20% more expensive. Seems a regional thing with regard to ECC pricing as here in the UK typ 25% premium, normally 50% or more for ECC memory.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[SSD]

In addition ECC memory is usually a lot more expensive due to volumes and requiring more memory for the same size.

 

This is not true - the regular ECC memory is just marginally more expensive than the plain vanilla one (it is the cost of one or two extra memory chips). As such in theory they will work in any motherboard supporting ECC memory.

 

I took a look at newegg and 1Gb PC3 is only a few % more, 2GB 10-20% more expensive. Seems a regional thing with regard to ECC pricing as here in the UK typ 25% premium, normally 50% or more for ECC memory.

 

ECC (error correcting memory) can detect and in some cases correct memory errors.  So ECC memory can keep the computer operating reliably even if some bits start to fail.

 

But keep in mind that non-ECC memory is typically very reliable.  If you run a good memory test when the memory is new, chances are good that the memory will work reliably for its useful life.  And if you are slightly anal, you can run a periodic memory test and verify it is in good working order.

 

Now if I had a data center full of servers, many of them packed with 4/8/16/+ memory sticks, all running mission critical applications I would definitely go with ECC. For for unRAID, with 1 or 2 memory sticks, seems a waste.  This is just my opinion.

[Smitty2k1]

It seems there are two types of ECC memory.

Registered and un-buffered.

 

Supermicro and other server motherboards that support both Xenon and i3 CPUs require different memory. The Xenons can use Registered and the i3's can only use un-buffered. Note that both types are indeed ECC memory.

 

The un-buffered memory does have a slight premium over regular DDR3 memory but the registered stuff is quite a bit more 2-3x the price.

[aiden]

Registered memory has an extra register on the stick to minimize the resource draw on the memory controller.  You really only see this requirement for 8GB sticks (8GB on one stick) or larger, and apparently the new Sandy Bridge processors don't even need it for 8GB sticks.